of syndicalists who had descended upon her restricted world.  But Insall and Mrs. Maturin were not to be ticketed.  What chiefly surprised her, in addition to their kindliness, to their taking her on faith without the formality of any recommendation or introduction, was their lack of intellectual narrowness.  She did not, of course, so express it.  But she sensed, in their presence, from references casually let fall in their conversation, a wider culture of which they were in possession, a culture at once puzzling and exciting, one that she despaired of acquiring for herself.  Though it came from reading, it did not seem “literary,” according to the notion she had conceived of the term.  Her speculations concerning it must be focussed and interpreted.  It was a culture, in the first place, not harnessed to an obvious Cause:  something like that struck her.  It was a culture that contained tolerance and charity, that did not label a portion of mankind as its enemy, but seemed, by understanding all, to forgive all.  It had no prejudices; nor did it boast, as the Syndicalists boasted, of its absence of convention.  And little by little Janet connected it with Silliston.

“It must be wonderful to live in such a place as that,” she exclaimed, when the Academy was mentioned.  On this occasion Insall had left for a moment, and she was in the little room he called his “store,” alone with Mrs. Maturin, helping to sort out a batch of garments just received.

“It was there you first met Brooks, wasn’t it?” She always spoke of him as Brooks.  “He told me about it, how you walked out there and asked him about a place to lunch.”  Mrs. Maturin laughed.  “You didn’t know what to make of him, did you?”

“I thought he was a carpenter!” said Janet.  “I—­I never should have taken him for an author.  But of course I don’t know any other authors.”

“Well, he’s not like any of them, he’s just like himself.  You can’t put a tag on people who are really big.”

Janet considered this.  “I never thought of that.  I suppose not,” she agreed.

Mrs. Maturin glanced at her.  “So you liked Sflliston,” she said.

“I liked it better than any place I ever saw.  I haven’t seen many places, but I’m sure that few can be nicer.”

“What did you like about it, Janet?” Mrs. Maturin was interested.

“It’s hard to say,” Janet replied, after a moment.  “It gave me such a feeling of peace—­of having come home, although I lived in Hampton.  I can’t express it.”

“I think you’re expressing it rather well,” said Mrs. Maturin.

“It was so beautiful in the spring,” Janet continued, dropping the coat she held into the drawer.  “And it wasn’t just the trees and the grass with the yellow dandelions, it was the houses, too—­I’ve often wondered why those houses pleased me so much.  I wanted to live in every one of them.  Do you know that feeling?” Mrs. Maturin nodded.  “They didn’t hurt your eyes when you looked at them, and they seemed to be so much at home there, even the new ones.  The new ones were like the children of the old.”