d it awhile. "I never will, till I have been
through everything myself."

"_You_ were not made to suffer--you were made to enjoy," Olive said, in
very much the same tone in which she had told her that what was the
matter with her was that she didn't dislike men as a class--a tone which
implied that the contrary would have been much more natural and perhaps
rather higher. Perhaps it would; but Verena was unable to rebut the
charge; she felt this, as she looked out of the window of the carriage
at the bright, amusing city, where the elements seemed so numerous, the
animation so immense, the shops so brilliant, the women so strikingly
dressed, and knew that these things quickened her curiosity, all her
pulses.

"Well, I suppose I mustn't presume on it," she remarked, glancing back
at Olive with her natural sweetness, her uncontradicting grace.

That young lady lifted her hand to her lips--held it there a moment; the
movement seemed to say, "When you are so divinely docile, how can I help
the dread of losing you?" This idea, however, was unspoken, and Olive
Chancellor's uttered words, as the carriage rolled on, were different.

"Verena, I don't understand why he wrote to you."

"He wrote to me because he likes me. Perhaps you'll say you don't
understand why he likes me," the girl continued, laughing. "He liked me
the first time he saw me."

"Oh, that time!" Olive murmured.

"And still more the second."

"Did he tell you that in his letter?" Miss Chancellor inquired.

"Yes, my dear, he told me that. Only he expressed it more gracefully."
Verena was very happy to say that; a written phrase of Basil Ransom's
sufficiently justified her.

"It was my intuition--it was my foreboding!" Olive exclaimed, closing
her eyes.

"I thought you said you didn't dislike him."

"It isn't dislike--it's simple dread. Is that all there is between you?"

"Why, Olive Chancellor, what do you think?" Verena asked, feeling now
distinctly like a coward. Five minutes afterwards she said to Olive that
if it would give her pleasure they would leave New York on the morrow,
without taking a fourth day; and as soon as she had done so she felt
better, especially when she saw how gratefully Olive looked at her for
the concession, how eagerly she rose to the offer in saying, "Well, if
you _do_ feel that it isn't our own life--our very own!" It was with
these words, and others besides, and with an unusually weak, indefinite
kiss, as if she wished