crochet-needle, and bent to pick it up, with a
blurred vision and nervous fingers.

"I cannot tell," she said. "I am not old enough to know yet."

"You are seventeen," said Priscilla. "I knew at seventeen."

Theo recovered the needle, and reset it in her work to give herself
time, and then she looked up and faced her questioner bravely, in a sort
of desperateness.

"If I knew that I loved any one. If I had ever loved any one as Pamela
loved Mr. Brunwalde, I should be like Pamela," she said. "I should never
love any one else."

From that time she fancied that Priscilla Gower liked her better than
she had done before; at any rate, she took more notice of her, though
she was never effusive, of course.

She talked to her oftener, and seemed to listen while she talked, even
though she was busy at the time. She said to her once that she would
like to know Pamela; and, emboldened by this, Theo ventured to bring one
of Pam's letters to read to her; and when she had read it, told the
whole story of her sister's generosity in a little burst of enthusiastic
love and gratitude that fairly melted tender-hearted old Miss Elizabeth
to tears, and caused her to confide afterward to Theo the fact that she
herself had felt the influence of the tender passion, in consequence of
the blandishments of a single gentleman of uncertain age, whose
performances upon the flute had been the means of winning her
affections, but had unhappily resulted in his contracting a fatal cold
while serenading on a damp evening.

"He used to play 'In a Cottage near a Wood,' my dear, most beautifully,"
said Miss Elizabeth, wild with pathos, "though I regret to say that, as
we did not live in a musical neighborhood, the people next door did not
appreciate it; the gentleman of the house even going so far as to say
that he was not sorry when he died, as he did a few weeks after the cold
settled on his dear weak lungs. He was the only lover I ever had, my
dear Theodora, and his name was Elderberry, a very singular name, by the
way, but he was a very talented man."

When Theo went into the little back bedroom that evening to put on her
hat, Priscilla Gower went with her, and, as she stood before the
dressing-table buttoning her sacque, she was somewhat puzzled by the
expression on her companion's face. Priscilla had taken up her muff, and
was stroking the white fur, her eyes downcast upon her hand as it moved
to and fro, the ring upon its forefinger shining i