emarks and comments often
touched, always interested him, although sometimes they well-nigh
convulsed him with amusement. To the mind of the man of the world they
appeared so--almost obsolete.

Pocahontas was generally willing enough to tell her stories, unless
indeed Norma happened to be present, and then the improvisatrice was
dumb. Pocahontas was not in sympathy with Norma. Norma thought old
stories great rubbish, and did not scruple to show that such was her
opinion, and Pocahontas resented it. One evening, in the beginning of
their acquaintance, the three girls had walked down to the old willows
at the foot of the lawn, and Pocahontas, for the amusement of her
guests, had related the little story connected with them.

"I think it was all great foolishness," Norma declared. "If she loved
the man, why not marry him at once like a sensible woman? The idea of
making him wait three years, and watch a rubbishing little tree, just
because his brother would have made a scene. What if he did make a
scene? He would soon have submitted to the inevitable, and made
friends. The lady couldn't have cared much for her lover, to be
willing to put up with that driveling probation."

"She did love him," retorted Pocahontas, with annoyance, "and she
proved it by being willing to sacrifice a little of her happiness to
spare him the bitterness of a quarrel with his own brother. The men
were twins, and they loved one another, until unnatural rivalry pushed
family affection into the background. If the matter had been settled
when both were at white heat, an estrangement would have ensued which
it would have taken years to heal--if it ever _was_ healed. There's no
passion so unyielding as family hate. They were her kinsmen, too, men
of her own blood; she must think of _them_, outside of herself. The
welfare of the man she didn't love must be considered as well as that
of the man she did love--more, if any thing, because she gave him so
much less. How could she come between twin brothers, and turn their
affection to hatred? She knew them both--knew that her own true lover
would hold firm for all the years of his life, so that she could safely
trust him for three. And she knew that the lighter nature would, in
all probability, prove inconstant; and if he left her of his own
freewill, there could be no ill-feeling, and no remorse."

Norma laughed derisively. "And in this fine self-sacrifice she had no
thought of her love