Page:On the Hill-top (1919).pdf/49

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wanted to learn. I want to learn more, so that I can give more."

"And didn't you learn anything?"

Again Marjorie sat and thought. "Yes," she said at last, "I did; but the learning hurt. It cost so much."

"And you want 'something for nothing'?"

"No." Then she laughed. "But you see, I seem always to want to pay some other way than the way that I have to."

"But you are willing to pay—what is necessary?"

Marjorie put up her head. "Yes," she said, "whatever the price is."

"Good!" said the Dream. "Just remember that. If you want to give, then you must be willing to pay the price for the thing that you want to give. If you don't pay in love, then you must pay in pain. It is the only way."

Marjorie leaned back against the tree, looking long and deep into the great picture spread before her;—long and long she looked, until her eyes grew great and her breath came strong and full. "No price looks too large to pay for anything worth while, when I am here on the hill-top," she said. "I am going to try to stay here all the time, and to bring up here to me, all of the lessons that I must learn, and to give from here all of the things that I have to give; for when I am here I can see where everything belongs, and I don't even know how to be a misfit."