ecause you and I are so much alike."

"I should have thought you would have understood everybody, you have
such quick perceptions and such keen sympathies." Elisabeth, for all her
cleverness, had yet to learn to differentiate between the understanding
heart and the understanding head. There is but little real similarity
between the physician who makes an accurate diagnosis of one's
condition, and the friend who suffers from the identical disease.

"No; I don't understand everybody. I don't understand all these fine
people whom we are with to-day, for instance. They seem to me so utterly
worldly and frivolous and irresponsible, that I haven't patience with
them. I daresay they look down upon me for not having blood, and I know
I look down upon them for not having brains."

Elisabeth's eyes twinkled in spite of herself. She remembered how
completely Cecil had been out of it in the conversation on the launch;
and she wondered whether the King of Nineveh had ever invited Jonah to
the state banquets. She inclined to the belief that he had not.

"But they have brains," was all she said.

Cecil was undeniably cross. "They talk a lot of nonsense," he retorted
pettishly.

"Exactly. People without brains never talk nonsense; that is just where
the difference comes in. If a man talks clever nonsense to me, I know
that man isn't a fool; it is a sure test."

"There is nonsense and nonsense."

"And there are fools and fools." Elisabeth spoke severely; she was
always merciless upon anything in the shape of humbug or snobbery. Maria
Farringdon's training had not been thrown away.

"I despise mere frivolity," said Cecil loftily.

"My dear Mr. Farquhar, there is a time for everything; and if you think
that a lunch-party on the river in the middle of the season is a
suitable occasion for discussing Lord Stonebridge's pecuniary
difficulties, or solving Lady Silverhampton's religious doubts, I can
only say that I don't." Elisabeth was irritated; she knew that Cecil was
annoyed with her friends not because they could talk smart nonsense, but
because he could not.

"Still, you can not deny that the upper classes are frivolous," Cecil
persisted.

"But I do deny it. I don't think that they are a bit more frivolous than
any other class, but I think they are a good deal more plucky. Each
class has its own particular virtue, and the distinguishing one of the
aristocracy seems to me to be pluck; therefore they make light of things
wh