ndness in not liking me to lose the
pleasure. Besides, one must act for oneself, and this was only my own
personal amusement.'

'Yes,' said Amy, timidly hesitating.

'Well?' said he, with the gentle, deferential tone that contrasted with
his hasty, vehement self-accusations. 'Well?' and he waited, though not
so as to hurry or frighten her, but to encourage, by showing her words
had weight.

'I was thinking of one thing,' said Amy; 'is it not sometimes right
to consider whether we ought to disappoint people who want us to be
pleased?'

'There it is, I believe,' said Guy, stopping and considering, then going
on with a better satisfied air, 'that is a real rule. Not to be so bent
on myself as to sacrifice other people's feelings to what seems best for
me. But I don't see whose pleasure I interfered with.'

Amy could have answered, 'Mine;' but the maidenly feeling checked her
again, and she said, 'We all thought you would like it.'

'And I had no right to sacrifice your pleasure! I see, I see. The
pleasure of giving pleasure to others is so much the best there is on
earth, that one ought to be passive rather than interfere with it.'

'Yes,' said Amy, 'just as I have seen Mary Ross let herself be swung
till she was giddy, rather than disappoint Charlotte and Helen, who
thought she liked it.'

'If one could get to look at everything with as much indifference as
the swinging! But it is all selfishness. It is as easy to be selfish for
one's own good as for one's own pleasure; and I dare say, the first is
as bad as the other.'

'I was thinking of something else,' said Amy. 'I should think it more
like the holly tree in Southey. Don't you know it? The young leaves are
sharp and prickly, because they have so much to defend themselves from,
but as the tree grows older, it leaves off the spears, after it has won
the victory.'

'Very kind of you, and very pretty, Amy,' said he, smiling; 'but, in the
meantime, it is surely wrong to be more prickly than is unavoidable, and
there is the perplexity. Selfish! selfish! selfish! Oneself the first
object. That is the root.'

'Guy, if it is not impertinent to ask, I do wish you would tell me
one thing. Why did you think it wrong to go to that ball?' said Amy,
timidly.

'I don't know that I thought it wrong to go to that individual ball,'
said Guy; 'but my notion was, that altogether I was getting into a
rattling idle way, never doing my proper quantity of work, or doing
it pr