She flushed a little at this, but answered stoutly. "Yes. I suppose that is true. You see, being the only one in our family to have the advantages of--well--the advantages that I have had, it was natural that I should--Surely you have seen, Patches, how discontented and dissatisfied I have been with the life here! Why, until you came there was no one to whom I could talk, even--no one, I mean, who could understand." "But what is it that you want, or expect to find, that you may not have right here?" Then she told him all that he had expected to hear. Told him earnestly, passionately, of the life she craved, and of the sordid, commonplace narrowness and emptiness--as she saw it--of the life from which she sought to escape. And as she talked the man's good heart was heavy with sadness and pity for her. "Oh, girl, girl," he cried, when she had finished. "Can't you--won't you--understand? All that you seek is right here--everywhere about you--waiting for you to make it your own, and with it you may have here those greater things without which no life can be abundant and joyous. The culture and the intellectual life that is dependent upon mere environment is a crippled culture and a sickly life. The mind that cannot find its food for thought wherever it may be planed will never hobble very far on crutches of superficial cults and societies. You are leaving the substance, child, for the shadow. You are seeking the fads and fancies of shallow idlers, and turning your back upon eternal facts. You are following after silly fools who are chasing bubbles over the edge of God's good world. Believe me, girl, I know--God! but I do know what that life, stripped of its tinseled and spangled show, means. Take the good grain, child, and let the husks go." As the man spoke, Kitty watched him as though she were intently interested; but, in truth, her thoughts were more on the speaker than on what he said. "You are in earnest, aren't you, Patches?" she murmured softly. "I am," he returned sharply, for he saw that she was not even considering what he had said. "I know how mistaken you are; I know what it will mean to you when you find how much you have lost and how little you have gained." "And how am I mistaken? Do I not know what I want? Am I not better able than anyone else to say what satisfies me and what does not?"