ch strike her as
unnecessarily prolix and prosy? Why should John insist on telling her
his feelings and opinions on a vast variety of subjects that she does
not care a button for? She doesn't know any thing about ritualism and
anti-ritualism; and, what's more, she doesn't care. She hates to hear
so much about religion. She thinks it's pokey. John may go to any
church he pleases, for all her. As to all that about his favorite
poems, she don't like poetry,--never could,--don't see any sense in
it; and John _will_ be quoting ever so much in his letters. Then, as
to the love parts,--it may be all quite new and exciting to John; but
she has, as she said, heard that story over and over again, till it
strikes her as quite a matter of course. Without doubt the whole world
is a desert where she is not: the thing has been asserted, over
and over, by so many gentlemen of credible character for truth and
veracity, that she is forced to believe it; and she cannot see why
John is particularly to be pitied on this account. He is in no more
desperate state about her than the rest of them; and secretly Lillie
has as little pity for lovers' pangs as a nice little white cat has
for mice. They amuse her; they are her appropriate recreation; and
she pats and plays with each mouse in succession, without any
comprehension that it may be a serious thing for him.

When Lillie was a little girl, eight years old, she used to sell her
kisses through the slats of the fence for papers of candy, and thus
early acquired the idea that her charms were a capital to be employed
in trading for the good things of life. She had the misfortune--and a
great one it is--to have been singularly beautiful from the cradle,
and so was praised and exclaimed over and caressed as she walked
through the streets. She was sent for, far and near; borrowed to be
looked at; her picture taken by photographers. If one reflects how
many foolish and inconsiderate people there are in the world, who have
no scruple in making a pet and plaything of a pretty child, one will
see how this one unlucky lot of being beautiful in childhood spoiled
Lillie's chances of an average share of good sense and goodness. The
only hope for such a case lies in the chance of possessing judicious
parents. Lillie had not these. Her father was a shrewd grocer, and
nothing more; and her mother was a competent cook and seamstress.
While he traded in sugar and salt, and she made pickles and embroidered
und