Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/124

 seemed to be gradually coming to her of its secrets and charms. It was not without a certain pain that this new feeling crept about her,—it seemed to be a part of the grieved loneliness which she had lately experienced.

"People can be nothing to us; there is nothing which can stand by us but our work, and when we have not any work, we are alone."

The speech was not a very coherent one, and the person to whom it was addressed received it in silence.

"Books are a help, but it is so one-sided a friendship one has with one's book friends. We cannot answer, and only receive, never giving anything in return for what we get from them."

Gladys Carleton was the speaker, and the listener, Larkington, her faithful cavalier.

"You live too much with your books, Miss Carleton, and too little with your kind. It makes you melancholy. You should learn to care more for people and less for ideas."