"No only I was realizing it strongly just now."
"It is a complaint we may all make. The remedy is, not to love less what we know, but to know better that of which we are in ignorance. We will be helps, and not hindrances to each other, Elfie."
"You have said that before," said Fleda, still keeping her head down.
"What?"
"About my being a help to you!"
"It will not be the first time," said he, smiling; "nor the second. Your little hand first held up a glass to gather the scattered rays of truth that could not warm me, into a centre where they must burn."
"Very innocently," said Fleda, with a little unsteady feeling of voice.
"Very innocently!" said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "A veritable lens could hardly have been more unconscious of its work, or more pure of design."
"I do not think that was quite so, either, Mr. Carleton," said
Fleda.
"It was so, my dear Elfie, and your present speech is nothing against it. This power of example is always unconsciously wielded; the medium ceases to be clear so soon as it is made anything but as medium. The bits of truth you aimed at me wittingly would have been nothing, if they had not come through that medium."