“Oh, no, no!” she interrupted eagerly; “it is to the world of people I am glad to escape from these solitudes of nature.  As I said, the latter, with their vastness, power, and, worse than all, their indifference, oppress me, and make me shiver with a vague dread.  I once saw a ship beaten to pieces by the waves in a storm.  It was on the coast near where we were spending the summer.  Some of the people on the vessel were drowned, and their cries ring in my ears to this day.  Oh, it was piteous to see them reaching out their hands, but the great merciless waves would not stop a moment, even when a little time would have given the lifeboats a chance to save the poor creatures.  The breakers just struck and pounded the ship until it broke into pieces, and then tossed the lifeless body and broken wood on the shore as if one were of no more value than the other.  I can’t think of it without shuddering, and I’ve hated the sea ever since, and never wish to go near it again.”

“You have unconsciously described this Christian city,” said Arnold, with a short laugh.

“What a cynic you are to-night!  You condemn all the world, and find fault even with yourself—­a rare thing in cynics, I imagine.  As a rule they are right, and the universe wrong.”

“I have not found any fault with you,” he said, in a tone that caused her long eyelashes to veil the pleasure she could not wholly conceal.

“I hope the self-constraint imposed by your courtesy is not too severe for comfort.  I also understand the little fiction of excepting present company.  But I cannot help remembering that I am a wee bit of the world and very worldly; that is, I am very fond of the world and all its pretty follies.  I like nice people much better than savage mountains and heartless waves.”

“And yet you are not what I should call a society girl, Miss Millie.”

“I’m glad you think so.  I’ve no wish to win that character.  Fashionable society seems to me like the sea, as restless and unreasoning, always on the go, and yet never going anywhere.  I know lots of girls who go here and there and do this and that with the monotony with which the waves roll in and out.  Half the time they act contrary to their wishes and feelings, but they imagine it the thing to do, and they do it till they are tired and bored half to death.”

“What, then, is your ideal of life?”

Her head drooped a little lower, and the tell-tale color would come as she replied hesitatingly, and with a slight deprecatory laugh: 

“Well, I can’t say I’ve thought it out very definitely.  Plenty of real friends seem to me better than the world’s stare, even though there’s a trace of admiration in it Then, again, you men so monopolize the world that there is not much left for us poor women to do; but I have imagined that to create a lovely home, and to gather in it all the beauty within one’s reach, and just the people one best liked, would be a very congenial life-work for some women.  That is what mother is doing for us, and she seems very happy and contented—­much more so than those ladies who seek their pleasures beyond their homes.  You see I use my eyes, Mr. Arnold, even if I am not antiquated enough to be wise.”