daddy, am I?" She stopped, and looked at him anxiously. The Rector did not speak. "Nothing will ever make you a prig," continued Katharine as she resumed her restless walk, "or Ted either, or Marion Keeley. Lovable people are never priggish, are they? Oh, I am never going to try to be anything, again. I shall become as much like the ordinary person as I can; I will let boys like Monty make love to me, and pretend that I like it; I will let myself go, and hide away my old feelings which were real ones, and invent a whole set of new ones for everyday use. Oh, dear, how absurd it all is! To make one's life a long course of deception, in order to prove to the world that we are real! And yet, that is the only way to avoid being called a prig. It is ridiculous to pretend that we care for what the big people think of us. We don't. It is the little, commonplace, ordinary folk, with the commonplace minds and the commonplace views, who make up our audience; and we acknowledge it all our lives by being afraid of their criticism. We play to them, and to them only, from the moment we begin to think for ourselves, until Providence is good enough to ring down the curtain. We make a wretched compromise with our real selves, in order to get through life without being laughed at for taking it seriously. And the end of it all is that we have to suffer our own contempt, instead of the commonplace person's. But everybody does the same, so it must be right, mustn't it? Daddy," she added suddenly, as she came to a standstill before him, "daddy, do you think, if I don't try to be good any more, that I shall ever become just an ordinary pleasant person,--someone whom people will care to fall in love with? It would be so comforting to feel that people cared to fall in love with me. I am so tired of being thought clever and nothing else; cleverness seems like a kind of blight that helps one to miss the biggest thing in life. At least, I have missed it, and everybody says I am clever. Why don't you answer me, daddy? Why, daddy! I--I do believe you're crying!" "No, my child, you are mistaken," said Cyril Austen hastily. "I have been overworking my eyes lately, that is all. You mustn't talk like that, little girl; it--it makes me unhappy. I should never have allowed you to go away by yourself, should I? I'm a useless old-- But there, it is too late now. Let us talk about this Paris plan of yours. What if I were to come too, eh?" "It would be beautiful!" cried Katharine. "But there is still Aunt Esther, isn't there?" "Ah, yes!" said the Rector ruefully. "So stupid of me to forget!"