t spoke a conventional tongue. "What's
language at all but a convention?" said Isabel. "She has the good
taste not to pretend, like some people I've met, to express herself by
original signs."

"I'm afraid you've suffered much," she once found occasion to say to her
friend in response to some allusion that had appeared to reach far.

"What makes you think that?" Madame Merle asked with the amused smile
of a person seated at a game of guesses. "I hope I haven't too much the
droop of the misunderstood."

"No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always
been happy wouldn't have found out."

"I haven't always been happy," said Madame Merle, smiling still, but
with a mock gravity, as if she were telling a child a secret. "Such a
wonderful thing!"

But Isabel rose to the irony. "A great many people give me the
impression of never having for a moment felt anything."

"It's very true; there are many more iron pots certainly than porcelain.
But you may depend on it that every one bears some mark; even the
hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole somewhere. I
flatter myself that I'm rather stout, but if I must tell you the truth
I've been shockingly chipped and cracked. I do very well for service
yet, because I've been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the
cupboard--the quiet, dusky cupboard where there's an odour of stale
spices--as much as I can. But when I've to come out and into a strong
light--then, my dear, I'm a horror!"

I know not whether it was on this occasion or on some other that the
conversation had taken the turn I have just indicated she said to Isabel
that she would some day a tale unfold. Isabel assured her she should
delight to listen to one, and reminded her more than once of this
engagement. Madame Merle, however, begged repeatedly for a respite, and
at last frankly told her young companion that they must wait till they
knew each other better. This would be sure to happen, a long friendship
so visibly lay before them. Isabel assented, but at the same time
enquired if she mightn't be trusted--if she appeared capable of a
betrayal of confidence.

"It's not that I'm afraid of your repeating what I say," her fellow
visitor answered; "I'm afraid, on the contrary, of your taking it too
much to yourself. You'd judge me too harshly; you're of the cruel age."
She preferred for the present to talk to Isabel of Isabel, and exhibited
the greatest interest in our heroine's