eekly; "I'm extremely sorry, but such is the case."

"It is a pity! But you may fall in love yet."

"It's too late, I fear. You see I am over thirty; and if I haven't done
it by now, I expect I never shall do it. It is tiresome to have missed
it, I admit; and especially as you think it would make me paint better
pictures."

"Well, I do. You paint so well now that it is a pity you don't paint
still better. I do not believe that any artist does his or her best work
until his or her nature is fully developed; and no woman's nature is
fully developed until she has been in love."

"I have never been in love; I don't even know what it is like inside,"
said Elisabeth sadly; "and I dreadfully want to know, because--looked at
from the outside--it seems interesting."

Grace gazed at her thoughtfully. "I wonder if it is that you are too
cold to fall in love, or whether it only is that the right person hasn't
appeared."

"I don't know. I wish I did. What do you think it feels like?"

"I know what it feels like--and that is like nothing else this side
heaven."

"It seems funny to get worked up in that sort of way over an ordinary
man--turning him into a revival-service or a national anthem, or
something equally thrilling and inspiring! Still, I'd do it if I could,
just from pure curiosity. I should really enjoy it. I've seen stupid
girls light up like a turnip with a candle inside, simply because some
plain young man did the inevitable, and came up into the drawing-room
after dinner; and I've seen clever women go to pieces like a linen
button at the wash, simply because some ignorant man did the inevitable,
and preferred a more foolish and better-looking woman to themselves."

"Have you really never been in love, Elisabeth?"

Elisabeth pondered for a moment. "No; I've sometimes thought I was, but
I've always known I wasn't."

"I wonder at that; because you really are affectionate."

"That is quite true; but no one has ever seemed to want as much as I had
to give," said Elisabeth, the smile dying out of her eyes; "I do so long
to be necessary to somebody--to feel that it is in my power to make
somebody perfectly happy; but nobody has ever asked enough of me."

"You could have made the men happy who wanted to marry you," suggested
Grace.

"No; I could have made them comfortable, and that's not the same thing."

As Elisabeth sat alone in her own room that night, she thought about
what Grace had said, and wondered if s