comes,
draws it forth, and reflects while she assumes it before the glass, and
blows away the strictly imaginary dust; for what worldly impurity can
penetrate through half a dozen layers of cambric and tissue-paper? Dear
me, what a comfort it is to have a nice, fresh, holiday faith!--When I
returned to the parlor, Miss Blunt was still sitting with her Bible in
her lap. Somehow or other, I no longer felt in the mood for jesting. So
I asked her soberly what she had been reading. Soberly she answered me.
She inquired how I had spent my half-hour.

"In thinking good Sabbath thoughts," I said. "I have been walking in the
garden." And then I spoke my mind. "I have been thanking Heaven that it
has led me, a poor, friendless wanderer, into so peaceful an anchorage."

"Are you, then, so poor and friendless?" asked Miss Blunt, quite
abruptly.

"Did you ever hear of an art-student under thirty who wasn't poor?" I
answered. "Upon my word, I have yet to sell my first picture. Then, as
for being friendless, there are not five people in the world who really
care for me."

"_Really_ care? I am afraid you look too close. And then I think five
good friends is a very large number. I think myself very well off with a
couple. But if you are friendless, it's probably your own fault."

"Perhaps it is," said I, sitting down in the rocking-chair; "and yet,
perhaps, it isn't. Have you found me so very repulsive? Haven't you, on
the contrary, found me rather sociable?"

She folded her arms, and quietly looked at me for a moment, before
answering. I shouldn't wonder if I blushed a little.

"You want a compliment, Mr. Locksley; that's the long and short of it. I
have not paid you a compliment since you have been here. How you must
have suffered! But it's a pity you couldn't have waited awhile longer,
instead of beginning to angle with that very clumsy bait. For an artist,
you are very inartistic. Men never know how to wait. 'Have I found you
repulsive? haven't I found you sociable?' Perhaps, after all,
considering what I have in my mind, it is as well that you asked for
your compliment. I have found you charming. I say it freely; and yet I
say, with equal sincerity, that I fancy very few others would find you
so. I can say decidedly that you are not sociable. You are entirely too
particular. You are considerate of me, because you know that I know that
you are so. There's the rub, you see: I know that you know that I know
it. Don't interrup