hinted and left the reader to infer, he told right
out in the bluntest and coarsest way. It had taken all the life out of
her, she said. It was just as if at a dinner-party one of the guests
should take a spoonful of soup and get up and say to the company, "Poor
stuff, poor stuff; you won't get anything better; let's go somewhere else
where things are fit to eat."

What do you read such things for, my dear? said I.

The film glistened in her eyes at the strange sound of those two soft
words; she had not heard such very often, I am afraid.

--I know I am a foolish creature to read them, she answered,--but I can't
help it; somebody always sends me everything that will make me wretched
to read, and so I sit down and read it, and ache all over for my pains,
and lie awake all night.

--She smiled faintly as she said this, for she saw the sub-ridiculous
side of it, but the film glittered still in her eyes. There are a good
many real miseries in life that we cannot help smiling at, but they are
the smiles that make wrinkles and not dimples. "Somebody always sends
her everything that will make her wretched." Who can those creatures be
who cut out the offensive paragraph and send it anonymously to us, who
mail the newspaper which has the article we had much better not have
seen, who take care that we shall know everything which can, by any
possibility, help to make us discontented with ourselves and a little
less light-hearted than we were before we had been fools enough to open
their incendiary packages? I don't like to say it to myself, but I
cannot help suspecting, in this instance, the doubtful-looking personage
who sits on my left, beyond the Scarabee. I have some reason to think
that he has made advances to the Young Girl which were not favorably
received, to state the case in moderate terms, and it may be that he is
taking his revenge in cutting up the poor girl's story. I know this very
well, that some personal pique or favoritism is at the bottom of half the
praise and dispraise which pretend to be so very ingenuous and
discriminating. (Of course I have been thinking all this time and
telling you what I thought.)

--What you want is encouragement, my dear, said I,--I know that as well,
as you. I don't think the fellows that write such criticisms as you tell
me of want to correct your faults. I don't mean to say that you can
learn nothing from them, because they are not all fools by any means, and
they wi