Virginia takes dislikes to faces; Florence cannot “stand” some people whom she greatly admires; Marian will not be deprived of the pleasure of “knocking” one particular girl. From what I gather, their gossip is not of the malicious sort, and this over-criticism and sensitiveness is, as I told them, a weakness and limitation of youth. They have not yet learned to use the good of people for their own good. For people in the street, however, they often have intense sympathy; and kindness for the stranger. Marian spoke again of the apartment houses behind her school, with their hundreds of windows. “You would like to tear their walls away, wouldn’t you,” asked Ruth, “to see what is going on?” “I don’t know,” said Marian, “but I can’t help thinking of all those different lives in there.” Virginia said whenever her mother saw strangers who looked as if they liked her, she spoke to them. “That,” I answered, “can seldom be done, except with children; because, you see, the world is not as we wish it, though it might be better were it so; and since the other person may not understand, we dare not try to understand him. Often on a sunny, happy morning, when I get into a car, I feel like greeting the motorman, and every person I meet. But how can I? They would misunderstand.” “Perhaps,” said Virginia, “that is the motive of the fresh young men who sometimes try to speak to you on the street.” “There’s just the trouble,” I answered, “that it isn’t their motive, and so it cannot be ours.” Ruth told us how at the Christian Science church that morning she had left something undone which she regretted. She said: “There was a young man who did not seem to know any one, and he looked lonesome and uncomfortable. I felt as if I ought to go up to him and make him welcome, but I had not the courage.” “And I think you were right,” I answered her, “for he might not have understood your motive. And yet again he might. It is hard to tell. I am sorry to say we have often to wrong people in this matter.” I spoke of the sufferings and the wrongs of society, and of how we must realize that these are our sufferings and our wrongs. “Yes,” said Marian, “but what can we do? We can’t do anything.” “There is very little we can do, except to be on the right side, and therefore ready to do. I want to have you see the thing as it is, to be conscious of the whole, as your whole self, so that you will act according to that knowledge.” “Don’t you think,” asked Marian, “that a great many people act the same way, without knowing why they do it?” “Yes,” I answered, “or else they are only half conscious, or think they have some other motive. But I believe in being fully conscious, and doing things with freedom and from conviction.” “I don’t believe,” said Marian, “that while I act I think of why I am acting.”