ncy her; she is just like Dora
in "David Copperfield,"--a perfect gosling! I am as vexed"----

"But she is exquisitely pretty."

"Pretty! well, that is all; he might as well have bought a nice picture,
or a dolly! I am out of all patience with Frank. I haven't the heart to
congratulate him."

"Don't be unreasonable, Laura; when you get as old as I am, you will
discover how much better and greater facts are than theories. It's all
very well for men to say,--

'Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,'--

the soul is all they love,--the fair, sweet character, the lofty mind,
the tender woman's heart, and gentle loveliness; but when you come down
to the statistics of love and matrimony, you find Sally Hetheridge at
sixty an old maid, and Miss Bowen at nineteen adored by a dozen men and
engaged to one. No, Laura, if I had ten sisters, and a fairy godmother
for each, I should request that ancient dame to endow them all with
beauty and silliness, sure that then they would achieve a woman's best
destiny,--a home."

Laura's face burned indignantly; she hardly let me finish before she
exclaimed,--

"Susan Lee! I am ashamed of you! Here are you, an old maid, as happy as
anybody, decrying all good gifts to a woman, except beauty, because,
indeed, they stand in the way of her marriage! as if a woman was only
made to be a housekeeper!"

Laura's indignation amused me. I went on.

"Yes, I am happy enough; but I should have been much happier, had I
married. Don't waste your indignation, dear; you are pretty enough
to excuse your being sensible, and you ought to agree with my ideas,
because they excuse Frank, and yours do not."

"I don't want to excuse him; I am really angry about it. I can't bear to
have Frank throw himself away; she is pretty now, but what will she be
in ten years?"

"People in love do not usually enter into such remote calculations; love
is to-day's delirium; it has an element of divine faith in it, in not
caring for the morrow. But, Laura, we can't help this matter, and we
have neither of us any conscience involved in it. Miss Bowen may be
better than we know. At any rate, Frank is happy, and that ought to
satisfy both you and me just now."

Laura's eyes filled with tears. I could see them glisten on the dark
lashes, as she affected to tie her hat, all the time untying it as fast
as ever the knot slid. She was a sympathetic little creature, and loved
Frank very sincerely, having known him as long as she