of a gifted child. Now for a while she was merry and chaffed me about the foxtrot, trod on my feet under the table, enthusiastically praised the meal, remarked on the care I had taken dressing, though she also had many criticisms to make on my appearance.
Meanwhile I asked her: “How did you manage to look like a boy and make me guess your name?”
“Oh, you did all that yourself. Doesn’t your learning reveal to you that the reason why I please you and mean so much to you is because I am a kind of looking-glass for you, because there’s something in me that answers you and understands you. Really, we ought all to be such looking-glasses to each other and answer and correspond to each other, but such owls as you are a bit peculiar. They give themselves on the slightest provocation over to the strangest notions that they can see nothing and read nothing any longer in the eyes of other men and then nothing seems right to them. And then when an owl like that after all finds a face that looks back into his and gives him a glimpse of understanding—well, then he’s pleased, naturally.”