Helen knew it was pretty. She had secretly a high opinion of her own talents. Why had she said it aloud except to make Father think what a remarkable child she was? She washed the dishes thoughtfully, feeling a gnawing discomfort. It was horrid of her to have said that just to make Father admire her. It was showing off. She hated people who showed off. She decided ascetically to punish herself by owning up to her conceit. “I only told that poem to you because I thought it would make you think what a poetic child I am,” she confessed contritely. “It wasn’t really that I thought so much about the flower.” She felt better. There now! Father would think what an honest, sincere child she was! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! That was showing off too! As bad as the first time! She said hastily, “And I only owned up because I thought it would make you think I’m honest and didn’t want to show off!” This sort of tortuous winding was very familiar to Helen. She frequently got herself into it and never knew how to get out. It always frightened her a little, made her lose her head. She felt startled now. “Why, Father, do you suppose I only said _that_, too, to make you....” She lifted her dripping hands out of the dishwater and turned wide, frightened eyes on her father. “Oh, Father, there I go! Do _you_ ever get going like that? One idea hitched to another and another and another; and you keep grabbing at them and can’t get hold of one tight enough to hold it still?” Lester laughed ruefully. “_Do_ I? Nothing but! I often feel like a dog digging into a woodchuck hole, al_most_ grabbing the woodchuck’s tail and never quite getting there.” “That’s just _it_!” said the little girl fervently. “I tell you, Helen,” said Lester, “that’s one of the reasons why it’s a pretty good thing for anybody with your kind of mind, or mine, to go to college. If you try, you can find out in college how to get after those thoughts that chase their own tails like that.” “You _can_?” said Helen, astonished that other people knew about them. “I suppose you think,” conjectured Lester, hanging up the potato-masher, “that you’re the only person bothered that way. But as a matter of fact, lots and lots of people have been from the beginning of time! You’ve heard about the Greek philosophers, haven’t you? Well, that is really about all they were up to.” There was a pause, while Helen wiped off the top of the kitchen table. Then she remarked thoughtfully, “I believe I’d _like_ to go to college.” It was the first time she had ever thought of it. Oh, no, it was not always recipes they talked about on Saturday mornings! And on Saturday nights, as he reached for some book to take to bed with him, Lester’s hand not infrequently fell on an old, rubbed, shabby volume which fell open at the passage,