"
Alick's face lightened. "Yes," he said, "that is my dream--at least one
of them. I would not care how small the place might be, if I had supreme
control and might work unhindered in my own way."
"It will come," said Mr. Gryce cheerily. "All things come in time to him
who knows how to wait."
"Ah, if I could believe that!" sighed Alick, thinking of Leam.
"Take my word for it," returned Mr. Gryce. "It will do you no harm to
have a dash of rose-color in your rather sombre life; and Hope, if it
tells flattering tales, does not always tell untrue ones."
"I fear my hope has flattered me untruly," said Alick, his faithful
heart still on Leam.
Mr. Gryce captured a caterpillar wandering across the road. "Conduct is
fate," he said. "If this poor fellow had not been troubled with a fit of
restlessness, but had been content to lie safely hidden among the
grass-roots where he was born, he would not have been caught. Yes,
conduct is fate for a captive caterpillar as well as for man."
"And yet who can foresee?" said Alick. "We all walk in the dark
blindfold."
"As you say, who can foresee? That makes perhaps the hardship of it, but
it does not alter the fact. Blindly walking or with our eyes wide open,
our steps determine our destiny, and our goal is reached by our own
endeavors. We ourselves are the artificers of our lives, and mould them
according to our own pattern."
"But that part of our lives which is under the influence of another? How
can we manipulate that?" said Alick.
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