human association. One can take him where there are people who might become his friends, but unless he is clear of confining inhibitions and reservations his efforts at emotional expression will be fruitless and unsatisfying. While it is true that it is largely through emotional expression that personality finds its release, nevertheless, a measure of preparation for this experience is possible. Certainly this applied to the solution of Lydia Easton's difficulties.
Lydia had had an unsettled and an unsatisfactory childhood. Her father had died when she was a baby and her mother had moved about from place to place selling books and leaving her children to form what associates they could in her absence. It was a haphazard sort of life and the girl had always looked forward to the time when in a family of her own she might have that which hitherto she had lacked. Her desire for affection laid her open to seduction and she had scarcely reached twenty years of age when a baby was born to her whose father's previous marriage prevented him from becoming her husband. She left her mother and sisters taking the child with her.
She now began wearing a wedding ring and spoke of herself as a widow. She almost succeeded
