for me! The other day--it only seems the other day--I was
just as happy as a bird. Do say you are sorry for me."

"But, my dear, I don't know why there should be any sorrow about it. Why
should not everything prove to be perfectly happy?"

"Do you think so, Nola?"

She looked up to Nola with an expression of childlike anxiety.

"Why should it not be so, Lucy? If I were a man, I should be very much
in love with you, dear. You are the girl that men ought to be in love
with."

There was a certain tone of coldness or constraint in Minola's voice
which could not escape even Lucy's observation.

"You think me weak and foolish, I know very well, Nola, because I have
made such a confession as this. For all your kindness and your good
heart, I know that you despise any girl who allows herself to fall in
love with a man. You don't care about men, and you think we ought to
have more dignity, and not to prostrate ourselves before them; and you
are quite right. Only some of us can't help it."

"No," said Minola sadly; "I suppose not."

"There! You look all manner of contempt at me. I should like to have you
painted as the Queen of the Amazons--you would look splendid. But I may
trust to your friendly heart and your sympathy all the same, I know. You
will pity us weaker girls, and you won't be too hard on us. I want you
to help me."

"Can I help you, Lucy? Shall I ask Mr. Heron if he is in love with you?
I will if you like."

"Oh, Nola, what nonsense! That only shows how ridiculous you think me.
No, I only mean that you should give me your sympathy, and let me talk
to you. And--you observe things so well--just to use your eyes for my
sake. Oh, there is so much a friend may do! And he thinks so much of
you, and always talks to you so freely."

Yes, Minola thought to herself; he always talks to me very freely--we
are good friends. If he were in love with Lucy, I dare say he would tell
me. Why should he not? She tells me that she is in love with him--that
is a proof of her friendship.

We can think in irony as well as speak in it, and Minola was disposed at
present to be a little sarcastic. She did not love such disclosures as
Lucy had been making. There seemed to be a lack of that instinctive
delicacy in them, which, as she fancied, might be the possession of a
girl were she brought up naked in a south sea islet. Fresh and innocent
as Lucy was, yet this revelation seemed wanting in pure self-respect.
Perhaps, too, it was