you lived. She has never seriously reflected on any subject one half
hour in her life. She has been borne on by the current and let it
take her where it would. But at last some influence is brought to
bear upon her which leads her to stop to look about her and to think.
She finds herself in a world of serious, momentous events. She see
she cannot live in it, was not meant to live in it forever, and that
her whole unknown future depends on what she is, not on how she
looks. She begins to cast about for some plan of life, and this
leads---"

"A plan of life?" Miss Clifford interrupted. "I never heard of such a
thing."

"Yet you would smile at an architect, who having a noble structure to
build, should begin to work on it in a haphazard way, putting in a
brick here and a stone there, weaving in straws and sticks if they
come to hand, and when asked on what work he was engaged, and what
manner of building he intended to erect, should reply he had no plan,
but thought something would come of it."

Miss Clifford made no reply. She sat with her head resting on her
band, looking dreamily before her, a truly beautiful, but unconscious
picture.. I too, began to reflect, that while I had really aimed to
make the most out of life, I had not done it methodically or
intelligently.

We are going to try to stay in town this summer. Hitherto Ernest
would not listen to my suggestion of what an economy this would be.
He always said this would turn out anything but an economy in the
end. But now we have no teething baby; little Raymond is a strong,