in keeping with Minola's old creed to believe that
this was just the sort of girl whom most men would be sure to love. At
any rate, she was for the moment in a somewhat bitter mood. Something of
this must have shown itself in her expression, for Lucy said, in a tone
of frightened remonstrance--

"Now, Nola, I have told you all. I have betrayed myself to you, and if
you only despise me and feel angry with me, oh, what shall I do? Isn't
it strange--you both came the same day here--you and he, for the first
time--I mean the first time since I saw you at school. Am I to lose you
too?"

There was something so simple and helpless in this piteous appeal, with
its implied dread of a love proving hopeless, that no irony or anger
could have prevailed against it in Minola's breast. She threw her arm
round the child's neck and petted and soothed her.

"Why should you lose both--why should you lose either?" Minola said. "I
can promise you for one, Lucy dear; and if I could promise you for the
other too, you might be sure of him. He must be a very insensible
person, Lucy, who fails to appreciate you. Only don't make it too plain,
dear, to any one but me. They say that men like to do the love-making
for themselves--and you have not the slightest need to go out of your
way. Tell me--does he know anything of this?"

"Oh, no, Nola."

"Nor guess anything at all?"

"Oh, no--I am sure not--I don't think so. You didn't guess
anything--now, did you?--and how could he?"

Minola felt a little glad to hear of this--for the dignity of womanhood,
she said to herself. But she did not know how long it would last, for
Lucy was not a person likely to accomplish great efforts of
self-control, for the mere sake of the abstract dignity of womanhood.
For the moment, all Minola could do was to express full sympathy with
her friend, and at the same time to counsel her gently not to betray her
secret. Lucy went to her bedroom at last, much fluttering and quivering,
but also relieved and encouraged, and she fell asleep, for all her love
pains, long before Minola did.

"She will be very happy," Minola sat thinking, when she was alone. "She
has a great deal already: a loving father, and mother, and sister; a
happy home, where she is sheltered against everything; a future all full
of brightness. He will love her--I suppose. She's very pretty, and
sweet, and obliging; and he is simple and manly, and would be drawn by
her pure, winning ways; and men lik