Never having so much as discovered my own soul, I should scarcely presume to undertake the management of yours, but what I do want to do is to feed you eggs! "No--now don't take it that way.

You're thinking of eggs one orders at a hotel, or--or a boarding-house, maybe.

But did you ever eat the eggs that were triumphantly announced by the darlingest bantam-- ?" She paused--beaten back by the things gathering in the girl's face.
"Tell me the truth!" it broke.

"What are you doing this for?
What have you to _gain_ by it ?" "I hadn't thought just what I had to--gain by it," Katie stammered, at a loss before so fierce an intensity.

"Does--must one always 'gain' something ?" "If you knew the world," the girl threw out at her, "you'd know well enough one always expects to gain something! But you don't know the world--that's plain." Katie was humbly silent.