became paler and less vigorous, and made his friends
wonder a good deal, until they at last suspected his sweet sorrow, and
ranged themselves in eager ranks upon his side, with all history and
tradition in their favor.

Nan herself was not among the first to suspect that one of her new
friends had proved to be a lover; she had been turned away from such
suspicions by her very nature; and when she had been forced to believe
in one or two other instances that she was unwillingly drawing to
herself the devotion which most women unconsciously seek, she had been
made most uncomfortable, and had repelled all possibility of its
further progress. She had believed herself proof against such
assailment, and so indeed she had been; but on the very evening of her
battle for her opinions at Mrs. Fraley's she had been suddenly
confronted by a new enemy, a strange power, which seemed so dangerous
that she was at first overwhelmed by a sense of her own
defenselessness.

She had waited with Miss Fraley, who was not quite ready to leave the
dining-room with the rest, and had been much touched by her
confidence. Poor Eunice had been very fond of one of her
school-fellows, who had afterward entered the navy, and who had been
fond of her in return. But as everybody had opposed the match, for her
sake, and had placed little reliance in the young man, she had meekly
given up all hope of being his wife, and he had died of yellow fever
at Key West soon after. "We were not even engaged you know, dear,"
whispered the little lady, "but somehow I have always felt in my heart
that I belonged to him. Though I believe every word you said about a
girl's having an independence of her own. It is a great blessing to
have always had such a person as my mother to lean upon, but I should
be quite helpless if she were taken away.... Of course I have had what
I needed and what we could afford," she went on, after another pause,
"but I never can get over hating to ask for money. I do sometimes envy
the women who earn what they spend."

Nan's eyes flashed. "I think it is only fair that even those who have
to spend their husband's or their father's money should be made to
feel it is their own. If one does absolutely nothing in one's home,
and is not even able to give pleasure, then I think it is stealing. I
have felt so strongly about that since I have grown up, for you know
Dr. Leslie, my guardian, has done everything for me. Aunt Nancy gave
me money every