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 cocoon but could scarcely fold her wings and crawl back into it.

She recalled the cruel little poem, still unaccounted for, which had thrown open a door in her mind.

Those lines had come at her with a reproachful directness. In them, or rather in the blue pencil which marked off the poem on its printed page, she had read Keble's impatience with her limitations. Her reason had seen in the lines a justification against which her heart rebelled. From that moment she had been disciplining her heart. So effectively indeed, that now,—were it not for that appealing little droop and for the sentimental fragrance which still clung to her,—she might have flung the poem at him and cried, "Voilà la monnaie de ta pièce. I've learned my lesson in bitter thoroughness. Now it is I who point to 'rude necessary heights' intent upon a goal you are unable to see."

The nature of the goal was not clear even to herself, nor could she exactly define the help that Dare had given her in mounting towards it. Certainly the upward journey had been easier since he had first appeared, and certainly her climbing prowess had seemed more notable in moments when she and Dare on some high ledge of thought had laughingly looked down at Keble and Miriam exchanging mystified