Rose-Marie’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, as she interrupted.

“Somehow,” she said, “I can’t think that you and my aunts are quite right about shielding me—­about keeping me from brushing up against life, and the real facts of life.  It seems to me that there’s only one way to develop—­really.  And that way is to learn to accept things as they come; to meet situations—­no matter how appalling they may be, with one’s eyes open.  If I,” she was warming to her subject, “am never to tire myself out, working for others, how am I to help them?  If I am never to see conditions as they are how am I ever to know the sort of a problem that we, here at the Settlement House, are fighting?  Dr. Blanchard wouldn’t try to treat a case if he had no knowledge of medicine—­he wouldn’t try to set a broken leg if he had never studied anatomy.  You wouldn’t be in charge, here, if you didn’t know the district, if you didn’t realize the psychological reasons back of the things that the people of the district say and do.  Without the knowledge that you’re trying to keep from me you’d be as useless as”—­she faltered—­“as I am!”

The Superintendent’s expression reflected all the tenderness of her nature; the mother-instinct, which she had never known, made her smile into the girl’s serious face.

“My dear,” she said, “you must not think that you’re useless.  You must never think that!  Look at the success you’ve had in your club work—­remember how the children that you teach have come to love you.  You’ve done more with them, because of the things that you don’t know, than I could ever do—­despite the hard facts that I’ve had to brush up against.  Find content, dear, in being the sweet place in our garden—­that has so pitifully few flowers.  Do not long for the hard, uncomfortable places on the other side of the garden wall!”

Despite the Superintendent’s expression—­despite the gentle tone of her voice, Rose-Marie felt a sudden desire to cry out against the irony of it all.  She was so tired of being classed with the flowers!  “They toil not, neither do they spin,” came back to her, from a certain golden text that she had learned, long ago, in Sunday-school.  Even at the time it had seemed to her as if the flowers enjoyed lives that were a shade too easy!  At the time it had seemed unfair that they, who were not workers, should be beautiful—­more beautiful than the ants, for instance, that uncomplainingly toiled all day long for their existence.

“I don’t want to be a flower,” she exclaimed, almost fretfully, “I want to be a worth while member of society—­that’s what I want!  What’s the use of being a decoration in a garden!  What’s the use of knowing only the sunshine?  I want to know storms, too, and gales of wind.  I want to share the tempests that you go through!” She hesitated; and then—­“I read a book once,” she said slowly, “I forget what it was—­but I remember, in one place, that a woman was being discussed.  She was