Come back, and look at me quite calmly." Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having passed the prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up gently and let him look at me to his liking.

For little as I thought of such things till now, I seemed already to know more about them, or at least to wonder--which is the stir of the curtain of knowledge.

I did not say any thing, but labored to think nothing and to look up with unconscious eyes.

But Firm put me out altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter like a stupid little bird.
"My darling," he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such as I could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes, "you are not fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is devoting you.

You have not the hardness and bitterness of mind, the cold self-possession and contempt of others, the power of dissembling and the iron will--in a word, the fundamental nastiness, without which you never could get through such a job.