Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/137

A Puritan Bohemia In despair Helen went one March afternoon to Mrs. Kent to ask why all that she tried to grasp slipped so persistently through her fingers. As she crossed the Square she watched the naked branches of the trees, sharply outlined against the red brick walls where the late sun was shining. In Mrs. Kent's window stood a jar of golden daffodils. Helen caught a glimpse of a slender hand and a bit of black sleeve.

"Shall I tell you what I really think?" asked Mrs. Kent, when she had heard the girl's complaint. Helen had buried her face among the pillows on the lounge. "I think that you are taking the wrong road. There is only one way of entering people's lives. That is by sharing the common experience. This external way of trying to help will never make you understand. One must share life itself, the joy of it, the pain of it, if one is to know. 'He that entereth not in by the door of the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way'"