“I was commissioned to give you this, and, knowing the contents, hope a favorable answer.”

It was from Clara, urging her to come up the following week and officiate as bridesmaid at her wedding.  She could return home with Helen and George Asbury.  Beulah read the letter, smiled sadly, and put it in her pocket.

“Will you go?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?  You need a change of air, and the trip would benefit you.  You do not probably know how much you have altered in appearance since I saw you.  My uncle is coming out to persuade you to go.  Can’t I succeed without his aid?”

“I could not leave home now.  Eugene’s illness has prevented my accomplishing some necessary work, and as I consign him to other hands to-day, I must make amends for my long indolence.  Thank you for taking charge of my letter; but I cannot think of going.”

He perceived that no amount of persuasion would avail, and for an instant a look of annoyance crossed his face.  But his brow cleared as he said, with a smile: 

“For a year I have watched for your articles, and the magazine is a constant companion of my desk.  Sometimes I am tempted to criticise your sketches; perhaps I may do so yet, and that in no Boswell spirit either.”

“Doubtless, sir, you would find them very vulnerable to criticism, which nowadays has become a synonym for fault-finding; at least this carping proclivity characterizes the class who seem desirous only of earning reputation as literary Jeffreys.  I am aware, sir, that I am very vulnerable.”

“Suppose, then, that at the next month’s literary assize (as you seem disposed to consider it), you find in some of the magazines a severe animadversion upon the spirit of your writings?  Dare I do this, and still hope for your friendship?”

He watched her closely.

“Certainly, sir.  I am not writing merely to see myself in print, nor wholly for remuneration in dollars and cents.  I am earnestly searching for truth, and if in my articles you discover error and can correct it, I shall be glad to have you do so, provided you adopt the catholic spirit which should distinguish such undertakings.  Now, if you merely intend to hold me up for ridicule as thoroughly as possible, I prefer that you let me and my articles rest; but a calm, dispassionate criticism I should not shrink from.  I write only what I believe, and if I am in error, I shall be glad to have it corrected.”

“Miss Benton, may I venture to correct it without having recourse to the vehicle of public criticism?  Will you permit me to discuss with you, here in your quiet home, those vital questions whose solution seems to engage your every thought?”

She drew back, and answered, with a dreary sort of smile: 

“I am afraid you would derive little pleasure, and I less profit, from such disputation.  I have learned from bitter experience that merely logical forms of argumentation do not satisfy the hungry soul.  The rigid processes of Idealism annihilated the external world; and Hume proved that Mind was a like chimera; yet who was ever seriously converted by their incontrovertible reasoning?  I have lost faith in ratiocination.”