yet it is those who would hide behind them that men seem to
love the best.

"I always feel--oh, I never can help feeling," she said, "that nothing
could happen to you, that God Himself could not take you from me,
while I had hold of you."

"Grizel!"

"I mean only that He could not have the heart," she said hastily.
"No, I don't," she had to add. "I meant what you thought I meant. That
is why I feel it would be so sweet to be married, so that I could be
close to you every moment, and then no harm could come to you. I would
keep such a grip of you, I should be such a part of you, that you
could not die without my dying also.

"Oh, do you care less for me now?" she cried. "I can't see things as
clearly as you do, dearest, darlingest. I have not a beautiful nature
like yours. I am naturally rebellious. I have to struggle even to be
as good as I am. There are evil things in my blood. You remember how
we found out that. God knew it, too, and He is compassionate. I think
He makes many pitying allowances for me. It is not wicked, is it, to
think that?"

"You used to know me too well, Grizel, to speak of my beautiful
nature," he said humbly.

"I did think you vain," she replied. "How odd to remember that!"

"But I was, and am."

"I love to hear you proving you are not," said she, beaming upon him.
"Do you think," she asked, with a sudden change of manner to the
childish, like one trying to coax a compliment out of him, "that I
have improved at all during those last days? I think I am not quite
such a horrid girl as I used to be; and if I am not, I owe it to you.
I am so glad to owe it to you." She told him that she was trying to
make herself a tiny bit more like him by studying his book. "It is not
exactly the things you say of women that help me, for though they are
lovely I am not sure that they are quite true. I almost hope they are
not true; for if they are, then I am not even an average woman." She
buried her face in his coat. "You say women are naturally purer than
men, but I don't know. Perhaps we are more cunning only. Perhaps it is
not even a thing to wish; for if we were, it would mean that we are
good because there is less evil in us to fight against. Dear, forgive
me for saying that; it may be all wrong; but I think it is what nearly
all women feel in their hearts, though they keep it locked up till
they die. I don't even want you to believe me. You think otherwise of
us, and it is so sweet of you that we