"Well," said Mr. Russell, "I had a Secret Friend in my House, and she was wonderful because she was so young that she knew nothing. She never asked questions, but she thought questions. She knew nothing, she was waiting to grow up. She had little colour, only peace and promise. I knew she would grow up, but I also knew she would never grow old. I knew she would learn much, but I also knew she would never become complete and ask no more questions. That voice of hers would always end on a questioning note. You see, I have found my Secret Friend, grown-up, grown old enough to enjoy and understand a new and more vital youth." "Shall I find my Friend?" asked Jay. "Yes," said Mr. Russell in a very low voice. "You can find him if you look. You can find him, grown very old and ugly and tired. There are different ways of growing up, and your Secret Friend was rash in using up too great a share of his sum of life in the House by the Sea." Then Jay was suddenly enormously happy, and the veil of failure fell away from the day and from her life. She held in her hand incredible coincidences. The angle of the forest, the upright trees upon the sloping earth, the bend of the sky, the round bubble shapes of the clouds upon their appointed way, the agreement of the young leaves one with another, the unfailing pulse of the spring,--all these things seemed to her a chance, an unlikely and perfect consummation, that had been reached only by the extraordinary cleverness of God. All love and all success were pressed into a hair's-breadth, and yet the target was never missed.