passionately from
knowing that the others had also lost their hearts to him. There is
contagion in this sentiment, especially among women. And yet that
same hungry nature had fought against this, but too feebly, and the
natural result had followed.

"I will never stand in your way, nor in the way of either of you!"
she declared to Retty that night in the bedroom (her tears running
down). "I can't help this, my dear! I don't think marrying is in
his mind at all; but if he were ever to ask me I should refuse him,
as I should refuse any man."

"Oh! would you? Why?" said wondering Retty.

"It cannot be! But I will be plain. Putting myself quite on one
side, I don't think he will choose either of you."

"I have never expected it--thought of it!" moaned Retty. "But O! I
wish I was dead!"

The poor child, torn by a feeling which she hardly understood, turned
to the other two girls who came upstairs just then.

"We be friends with her again," she said to them. "She thinks no
more of his choosing her than we do."

So the reserve went off, and they were confiding and warm.

"I don't seem to care what I do now," said Marian, whose mood was
turned to its lowest bass. "I was going to marry a dairyman at
Stickleford, who's asked me twice; but--my soul--I would put an end
to myself rather'n be his wife now! Why don't ye speak, Izz?"

"To confess, then," murmured Izz, "I made sure to-day that he was
going to kiss me as he held me; and I lay still against his breast,
hoping and hoping, and never moved at all. But he did not. I don't
like biding here at Talbothays any longer! I shall go hwome."

The air of the sleeping-chamber seemed to palpitate with the
hopeless passion of the girls. They writhed feverishly under the
oppressiveness of an emotion thrust on them by cruel Nature's law--an
emotion which they had neither expected nor desired. The incident
of the day had fanned the flame that was burning the inside of their
hearts out, and the torture was almost more than they could endure.
The differences which distinguished them as individuals were
abstracted by this passion, and each was but portion of one organism
called sex. There was so much frankness and so little jealousy
because there was no hope. Each one was a girl of fair common sense,
and she did not delude herself with any vain conceits, or deny her
love, or give herself airs, in the idea of outshining the others.
The full recognition of the futil