ind your back,
and so I tell you. When Mrs. Milray thought you done wrong she come and
said so; and you can't forgive her."

Clementina did not answer. She had mastered the art of reticence in her
relations with Mrs. Lander, and even when Miss Milray tempted her one day
to give way, she still had strength to resist. But she could not deny
that Mrs. Lander did things at times to worry her, though she ended
compassionately with the reflection: "She's sick."

"I don't think she's very sick, now," retorted her friend.

"No; that's the reason she's so worrying. When she's really sick, she's
betta."

"Because she's frightened, I suppose. And how long do you propose to
stand it?

"I don't know," Clementina listlessly answered.

"She couldn't get along without me. I guess I can stand it till we go
home; she says she is going home in the fall."

Miss Milray sat looking at the girl a moment.

"Shall you be glad to go home?"

"Oh yes, indeed!"

"To that place in the woods?"

"Why, yes! What makes you ask?"

"Nothing. But Clementina, sometimes I think you don't quite understand
yourself. Don't you know that you are very pretty and very charming? I've
told you that often enough! But shouldn't you like to be a great success
in the world? Haven't you ever thought of that? Don't you care for
society?"

The girl sighed. "Yes, I think that's all very nice I did ca'e, one
while, there in Florence, last winter!"

"My dear, you don't know how much you were admired. I used to tell you,
because I saw there was no spoiling you; but I never told you half. If
you had only had the time for it you could have been the greatest sort of
success; you were formed for it. It wasn't your beauty alone; lots of
pretty girls don't make anything of their beauty; it was your
temperament. You took things easily and naturally, and that's what the
world likes. It doesn't like your being afraid of it, and you were not
afraid, and you were not bold; you were just right." Miss Milray grew
more and more exhaustive in her analysis, and enjoyed refining upon it.
"All that you needed was a little hard-heartedness, and that would have
come in time; you would have learned how to hold your own, but the chance
was snatched from you by that old cat! I could weep over you when I think
how you have been wasted on her, and now you're actually willing to go
back and lose yourself in the woods!"

"I shouldn't call it being lost, Miss Milray."

"I don't mean