“What a grave, grey-eyed face it is!” she thought.  She loved music and beautiful things, and yet she wondered why her eyes never sparkled and glowed like Marie’s.  She wished they had more expression.  And yet Marie was not a pretty girl:  no one would have thought for a moment of calling her pretty.

But what of Arthur?  Beth was surprised that during all this time she had seen him but once, though she lived so near to Victoria.  That once was in the University hall.  She had studied late one afternoon, in the reading-room, after the other girls were gone, and it was just where the two corridors met that she came face to face with Arthur.  He stopped, and inquired about her studies and her health, and his eyes rested kindly upon her for a moment; but he did not speak to her just like the old Arthur.  “Good-bye, Beth—­little Beth.”  She recalled the words as she passed down the long, deserted hall, with its row of lights on either side.

There was another thing that touched Beth.  It was when Marie left them just before the examinations in the spring; she was going to visit some friends.  Sweet Marie!  How she would miss her.  She sat by the drawing-room window waiting to bid her good-bye.  It was a bright April day, with soft clouds and a mild breeze playing through the budding trees.  Marie came down looking so picturesque under her broad-brimmed hat, and lifted her veil to receive Beth’s farewell kiss.  Beth watched her as she crossed the lawn to the cab.  Clarence came hurrying up to clasp her hand at the gate.  He looked paler, Beth thought; she hoped he would come in, but he turned without looking at her window and hurried away.  Beth felt a little sad at heart; she looked at the long, empty drawing-room, and sighed faintly, then went back upstairs to her books.

And what had that winter brought to Beth?  She had grown; she felt it within herself.  Her mind had stretched out over the great wide world with its millions, and even over the worlds of the sky at night, and at times she had been overwhelmed at the glory of earth’s Creator.  Yes, she had grown; but with her growth had come a restlessness; she felt as though something were giving way beneath her feet like an iceberg melting in mild waters.  There was one particular night that this restlessness had been strong.  She had been to the Modern Language Club, and listened to a lecture on Walt Whitman, by Dr. Needler.  She had never read any of Whitman’s poetry before, she did not even like it.  But there were phrases and sentences here and there, sometimes of Whitman’s, sometimes of Dr. Needler’s, that awakened a strange incoherent music in her soul—­a new chord was struck.  It was almost dark when she reached her room, at the close of a stormy winter day.  She stood at her window watching the crimson and black drifts of cloud piled upon each other in the west.  Strife and glory she seemed to read in that sky.  She thought of Whitman’s rugged manliness, of the way he had mingled with all classes