nd his uncle's
heartless indifference; everything, in short, that lay heavily on his
heart."

"Everything but the heaviest, Alice," said the other smiling.

"Well, if he had opened that sorrow, I 'd have heard him without anger;
I'd have honestly told him it was a very vain and fruitless pursuit. But
still my own heart would have declared to me that a young fellow is all
the better for some romance of this kind,--that it elevates motives
and dignifies actions, and, not least of all advantages, makes him very
uncompanionable for creatures of mere dissipation and excess."

"But that, of course, you were merely objective the while,--the source
from which so many admirable results were to issue, and never so much as
disturbed by the breath of his attachment. Is n't that so?"

"I 'd have said, 'You 're a very silly boy if you imagine that anything
can come of all this. '"

"And if he were to ask for the reason, and say, 'Alice, are you not your
own mistress, rich, free to do whatever you incline to do? Why should
you call me a fool for loving you?'"

"Take my word for it, Bella, he 'll never risk the answer he 'd be sure
to meet to such a speech," said the other, haughtily; and Isabella, who
felt a sort of awe of her sister at certain moments, desisted from
the theme. "Look! yonder they go, Maitland and Rebecca, not exactly
arm-inarm, but with bent-down heads, and that propinquity that implies
close converse."

"I declare I feel quite jealous,--I mean on your account, Bella," said
Mrs. Trafford.

"Never mind _my_ interests in the matter, Alice," said she, reddening;
"it is a matter of the most complete indifference to me with whom
he walks or talks. Mr. Norman Maitland is not to me one whit more of
consequence than is Tony Butler to my sister."

"That's a confession, Bella,--a confession wrung out of a hasty moment;
for Tony certainly likes _me_, and _I_ know it."

"Well, then, the cases are not similar, for Mr. Maitland does not care
for me; or, if he does, I don't know it, nor do I want to know it."

"Come, darling, put on your shawl, and let us have a breezy walk on the
cliffs before the day darkens; neither of these gentlemen are worth
the slightest estrangement between such sisters as we are. Whether Tony
likes me or not, don't steal him from me, and I 'll promise you to be
just as loyal with regard to the other. How I 'd like to know what they
are talking of there!"

As it is not impossible the reader ma