"It's always such a comfort to me," he continued, his kind eyes beaming upon his companion from beneath the brim of his wide-awake, "to think that you are her friend. I don't see much of her. I told you I should not be able to, when she first came, but the next best thing is to know that you do." Delia was silent. She did not meet his glance, but pressed her lips together and frowned a little. "Anna wants a friend," pursued the Professor, thoughtfully. "Little as I see of her, I can tell that. She has the sort of nature which depends greatly on influence--every one does, I suppose, but some of us can stand alone better than others." "Anna seems to get on very well," said Delia. "People always like her." "Yes, yes, yes," said the Professor, nodding his head gently, "so I should think--so I should think. But when I say a `friend,' Delia, I don't mean that sort of thing; I mean some one who's willing to take a little trouble." "I don't see how you can be a friend to a person that doesn't want you," said Delia, impatiently. "If Anna wanted me--" "You're not displeased with her about anything, I hope?" said the Professor, anxiously; "she has not offended you?" Delia hesitated. She could not bear to disappoint him, as he waited eagerly for her answer. "The fact is," she said at length, "I don't understand Anna. She doesn't look at things in the same way as I do. She gets on better with the Palmers than with me." "I'm sorry for that," said the Professor, with a discouraged air, "but Anna's very young, you know, in years and character too. I daresay she needs patience." "I'm afraid I've not been patient," said Delia, humbly. Mr Goodwin was the only person in the world to whom she was always ready to own herself in the wrong. "Oh, well, patience comes with years," he said; "you're too young yet to know much about it. It's often hard enough, even after a long life, to bear with the failings of others, and to understand our own. People are so different. Some are strong, and some are weak. And the strong ones are always expecting the weak ones to stand upright as they do, and go straight on their way without earing for praise or blame. And, of course they can't--it's not in them--they stumble and turn aside at little things that the others wouldn't notice. And the weak ones, to whom, perhaps, it is natural to be sweet-tempered, and yielding, and forgiving, expect those virtues from the strong--and they don't find them--and then they wonder how it is that they find it hard to forgive and impossible to forget, and call them harsh and unbearable. And so we go on misunderstanding instead of helping each other." Delia's face softened. Perhaps she had been too hasty with Anna--too quick to blame. "Listen," said the Professor, "I was reading this while I waited for service to begin this evening." He had taken out of his pocket a stumpy, and very shabby little brown volume of Thomas a Kempis, which was very familiar to her.