"Like to go to sea?" he asked genially. "'Ave to be a little boy 'fore you can do that," he added cheerfully, pulling at the rope and walking away as the wet end of it came over the side. "Don't 'ee slip into the water, little miss." She tightened her mouth when he had gone, for she was shy of strangers, and this one had hurt her with the truth. She felt that the man had read her thoughts, her brave desires to sail the sea, and she could have wept that he should know her secrets. She had been so happy looking at the boats, picturing them cargoed with cutlasses, monkeys, tarry ropes, and strange stuffs of foreign make and brilliance, all the garner of her reading and her quick eyes, fancying herself free to sail away if she would, and forgetting she was a girl. She so easily forgot her disabilities. Never mind! She made queer little gestures with her hands, and steadied her lips. She had not really wanted to be a sailor; she was, indeed, in some confusion as to a profession. At one time the career of a circus lady laid siege to her mind, and assaulted it with such fierceness and effect that only the thought of her parents' sorrow held her back from imploring them to let her go and learn to jump through hoops from the back of a cream-coloured steed, to stand on tiptoe on its moving haunches, and kiss pretty fingers to a cheering crowd. There was a life! How the ring-master cracked his whip, and the horse sprang forward, and the lady stood on those little feet and never slipped! Theresa liked the clothes that lady wore: sometimes a costume of scanty pink, neck and arms bare and beautiful, and little flat shoes secured with cross-gartering to the slim legs, or, in the more stately parts of the performance, a rich riding-habit of green velvet and a hat with a sweeping plume; gauntlets, too, and shining boots with yellow tops. There was something very dashing about that profession, but what of nursing? How would it feel to be a Florence Nightingale, with a grave sweet face, and men turning in their cots to bless one's shadow? But no, she could not fit herself into the part. But while she turned continually from one tempting vision to another, her father had already found a future for her, and one which would fill up the gaps in his own existence, and atone for his own failures. "I would rather be Keats," he had told her one day as they walked together in the country, "than all the conquerors in the world." "Would you?" she said, and held his hand fast. She liked conquerors. "What's Keats?" He had told her the poet's tale, and that evening he had found her with the book open on her knee.