ke to you frankly. The fact is that
I am very lonesome here: papa is always ailing and our doctor has been
away for three months.

Czeska.--Let that doctor of yours alone.

Stella.--You never liked him.

Czeska.--You know that I am not easily prejudiced against any one, but
I do not like him.

Stella.--And do you know that he has been offered a professorship
at the university, and that he is anxious to be elected a member of
parliament? Mother, you are really unjust. You know that he sacrificed
himself for us.

He is famous, rich, and a great student, but notwithstanding all that
he remains with us when the whole world is open to him. I would surely
have asked his advice.

Czeska.--Love is not an illness--but no matter about him. May God help
him! You had better tell me, dear kitten--are you very much in love?

Stella.--Do you not see how quickly everything has been done? It is
true that Countess Miliszewska came here with her son. I know it was
a question about me, and I feared, although in vain, that papa might
have the same idea.

Czeska.--You have not answered my question.

Stella.--Because it is a hard matter to speak about. Mother, Mr.
Pretwic's life is full of heroic deeds, sacrifices, and dangers. Once
he was in great peril, and he owes his life to Count Drahomir. But how
dearly he loves him for it. Well, my fiance bears the marks of distant
deserts, long solitudes, and deep sufferings. But when he begins to
tell me of his life, it seems that I truly love that stalwart man. If
you only knew how timidly, and at the same time how earnestly he told
me of his love, and then he added that he knows his hands are too
rough--

Czeska.--Not too rough--for they are honest. After what you have told
me, I am in his favor with all my soul.

Stella.--But in spite of all that, sometimes I feel very unhappy.

Czeska.--What is the matter? Why?

Stella.--Because sometimes we cannot understand each other. There are
two kinds of love--one is strong as the rocks, and the other is like a
brook in which one can see one's self. When I look at George's love,
I see its might, but my soul is not reflected in it like a face in a
limpid brook. I love him, it is true, but sometimes it seems to me
that I could love still more--that all my heart is not in that love,
and then I am unhappy.

Czeska.--But I cannot understand that. I take life simply. I love, or
I do not love. Well Stella, the world is so cleverly constructed, a