test him. He is all froth,--does not know much more than I do
myself. No, no,--that will never do."

"Perhaps you like some one else better?" said I, thinking if Margaret
was ever caught in the matrimonial noose, it must be a _lasso_, such as
are thrown round the neck of the wild horses of the prairies.

"What makes you say that?" she asked, quickly, and my beautiful essence
bottle was demolished by some sudden jerk which brought it in contact
with the marble table. "The brittle thing!" she exclaimed, tossing the
fragments on the carpet, at the risk of cutting our slippers and
wounding our feet. "I would not thank Ernest for such baby trifles,--I
was scarcely touching it. What makes you think I like anybody better?"

"I merely asked the question," I answered, closing my work box, and
drawing it nearer, so that her depredating fingers could not reach it.
She had already destroyed half its contents.

"I do like somebody a great deal better," she said, tossing her hair
over her forehead and veiling her eyes; "but if you guessed till
doomsday, you could not imagine who it is."

"I pity him, whoever it may be," said I, laughing.

"Why?"

"You are no more fit to be a wife, Madge, than a child of five years
old. You have no more thought or consideration, foresight or care."

"I am two years older than you are, notwithstanding."

"I fear if you live to be a hundred, you will never have the qualities
necessary to secure your own happiness and that of another in the close,
knitting bonds of wedded life."

I spoke more seriously than I intended. I was thinking of Mr. Regulus,
and most devoutly hoped for his sake, this wild, nondescript girl would
never reach his heart through the medium of his vanity. She certainly
paid him the most dangerous kind of flattery, because it was indirect.

"You do not know what a sensible man might make of me," she said,
shaking her head. "I really wish,--I do not know--but I sometimes
think"--

She stopped and leaned her head on her hand, and her hair fell shadingly
over her face.

"What, Margaret? I should like exceedingly to know your inmost thoughts
and feelings. You seem to think and feel so little;--and yet, in every
woman's heart there must be a fountain,--or else what a desert
waste,--what a dreary wilderness it must be."

She did not speak, but put both hands over her face and bent it
downwards, while her shoulders moved up and down with a spasmodic
motion. I thought she was