"I wish he could know everything about me without my telling him," was one of her thoughts, as she sat leaning over the end of a couch, supporting her head with her hand, and looking at herself in a mirror--not in admiration, but in a sad kind of companionship. "I wish he knew that I am not so contemptible as he thinks me; that I am in deep trouble, and want to be something better if I could." Without the aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man, only a few years older than herself, into a priest; a sort of trust less rare than the fidelity that guards it. Young reverence for one who is also young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of temptation, and the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force--not suspected to be a mere residue from weary experience.

"I wish he could know everything about me without my telling him," she thought, as she sat on a couch, supporting her head with her hand, and looking at herself in a mirror - not in admiration, but in a sad companionship. "I wish he knew that I am not so contemptible as he thinks me; that I am in deep trouble, and want to be something better." Without the aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man, only a few years older than herself, into a priest. Young reverence for one who is also young is the strongest of all.
