ter out
of doors, but it seems that nothing in the world can do me any good.
Everything I attempt must always end in disaster, and--oh, Mr. Stanton,
I am so very, very unhappy and miserable!"

To my amazement and distress, she covered her face with her little
gloved hands, and broke into a storm of sobbing.

CHAPTER VII

Friends

It was all I could do to resist the impulse to take the small trembling
hands in my own, to touch the bowed head with its glory of shimmering
ripples, to break into passionate words which must have alarmed her, and
put an end to my chance of winning her, perhaps for ever.

But to a certain extent I was able to control myself.

"What can I say--what can I do?" I stammered. "If there was only some
way in which it might be possible for me to help you."

"Ah, if--if!" she echoed, desolately. "Don't you think it strange that,
though we scarcely know each other--though this is only our second
meeting, and quite by chance, I turn to you with such a confession? I am
ashamed now"--and she impetuously dashed her tears away with a toy of a
handkerchief. "But the words spoke themselves before I could stop them.
You see, I have no one to talk to--no one to advise me. I think I must
be the loneliest girl in all this big preoccupied world."

"I should have thought you would have more friends than you could keep
within bounds," I said, hotly.

"Friends? Has anyone many friends? I have plenty of acquaintances, but I
think no friends. Let us not talk of this any more, though, Mr. Stanton.
I have forgotten myself."

"Forgive me--I can't obey you," I protested. "Just one word. As you
said, this is only our second meeting, and I have no right to ask a
favour of you, yet I am going to do it. I beg of you, as I never begged
anything before, that you will forget how short a time we have known
each other, and that you will take me for a friend--a friend in the
truest and best sense of that good, much-abused word. I swear to you
that you would find me loyal."

She looked up at me in the sweetest way, with eyes that glistened
through a sheen of tears.

"I believe that I should find you so," she answered, falteringly. "And,
oh, how I do need a friend--though you may think _me_ disloyal to
say that, when I have a home with those who--have meant to be kind to
me." Her eyes had dropped, but now she raised them again and met mine
earnestly. "Yes," she exclaimed--"yes, I _will_ have you for a
friend."