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“I think,” said the woman slowly, “that one is too ready to use the term ‘narrow’ for lives and opinions which have not covered, as we imagine, a great deal of ground. Sometimes I think ‘concentrated’ would be a better word to use for them. I know that people who have darted hither and thither from one place to another, and from one excitement to another, often talk about ‘living’ and the broadness of their lives. But I fancy that if one could go up in a kind of mental aeroplane and look down upon those lives, one might see that their grooves, though they took an intricate pattern, were possibly narrower than some of those which have gone along one straight and monotonous course.”

“Think so?” said Miss Mason again. Then she smiled half-shamefacedly. “There’s one thing—in spite of all the monotony, I’ve never been able to get rid of my belief in kind of fairy tale happenings. Utterly ridiculous, of course.”

The woman laughed, a low clear laugh, which pleased Miss Mason enormously.

“Now we’re on ground with which I’m far more familiar,” she replied. “I was trying to get hold of words and expressions before which were rather outside my vocabulary, and I fear I sounded a little stilted in consequence. But fairy tales! Why life is a fairy tale. Bad fairies and wicked magicians get mixed up in it of course, or it wouldn’t be one, but there are good fairies and all kinds of unexpected and delicious happenings right through it in spite of them. There’s often, too, a long journey through a wood. You’ve been through yours. What do you hope to find on this side?”