s! I think I
am getting a realizing sense. Wait! Don't speak don't move, Molly!"
Bessie dropped her chin into her hand, and stared straight forward,
gripping Mary Enderby's hand.

Mary withdrew it. "I shall have to go, Bessie," she said. "How is your
aunt?"

"Must you? Then I shall always say that it was your fault that I couldn't
get a realizing sense--that you prevented me, just when I was about to
see myself as others see me--as you see me. She's very well!" Bessie
sighed in earnest, and her friend gave her hand a little pressure of true
sympathy. "But of course it's rather dull here, now."

"I hate to have you staying on. Couldn't you come down to us for a week?"

"No. We both think it's best to be here when Alan gets back. We want him
to go down with us." Bessie had seldom spoken openly with Mary Enderby
about her brother; but that was rather from Mary's shrinking than her
own; she knew that everybody understood his case. She went so far now as
to say: "He's ever so much better than he has been. We have such hopes of
him, if he can keep well, when he gets back this time."

"Oh, I know he will," said Mary, fervently. "I'm sure of it. Couldn't we
do something for you, Bessie?"

"No, there isn't anything. But--thank you. I know you always think of me,
and that's worlds. When are you coming up again?"

"I don't know. Next week, some time."

"Come in and see me--and Alan, if he should be at home. He likes you, and
he will be so glad."

Mary kissed Bessie for consent. "You know how much I admire Alan. He
could be anything."

"Yes, he could. If he could!"

Bessie seldom put so much earnest in anything, and Mary loved (as she
would have said) the sad sincerity, the honest hopelessness of her tone.
"We must help him. I know we can."

"We must try. But people who could--if they could--" Bessie stopped.

Her friend divined that she was no longer speaking wholly of her brother,
but she said: "There isn't any if about it; and there are no ifs about
anything if we only think so. It's a sin not to think so."

The mixture of severity and of optimism in the nature of her friend had
often amused Bessie, and it did not escape her tacit notice in even so
serious a moment as this. Her theory was that she was shocked to
recognize it now, because of its relation to her brother, but her
theories did not always agree with the facts.

That evening, however, she was truly surprised when, after a rather
belated ring at the