_many_ men are ill-tempered--nearly _all_. If" (tightly clinching my
hands, and setting my teeth) "I had had any idea of his being the
_scoundrel_ that he is--"

"But he is not," she interrupts quickly, wincing a little at my words;
"indeed he is not! What ill have we heard from him? If you do not mind"
(laying her hand with gentle entreaty on my arm), "I had rather, _far_
rather, that you did not say any thing hard of him! I was always so glad
that you and he were such friends--always--and I do not know why--there
is no sense in it; but I am glad of it still."

"We were _not_ friends," say I, writhing a little; "why do you say so?"

She looks at me with a great and unfeigned astonishment.

"_Not friends!_" she echoes, slowly repeating my words; then, seeing the
expression of my face, stops suddenly.

"Are you _sure_," cry I, feverishly snatching her hands and looking with
searching anxiety into her face, "that you spoke truth just now?--that
you do not mind much--that you will get over it!--that it will not
_kill_ you?"

"_Kill_ me!" she says, with a little sorrowful smile of derision; "no,
no! I am not so easily killed."

"Are you _sure_?" persist I, with a passionate eagerness, still reading
her tear-stained face, "that it will not take the taste out of every
thing?--that it will not make you hate all your life?--it would me."

"_Quite_ sure!--certain!" she says, looking back at me with a steady
meekness, though her blue eyes brim over; "because God has taken from me
_one_ thing--one that I never had any right to expect--should I do well,
do you think, to quarrel with all that He has left me?"

I cannot answer; her godly patience is too high a thing for me.

"Even if my life _were_ spoilt," she goes on, after a moment or two, her
voice gaining firmness, and her face a pale serenity, "even if it
were--but it is _not_--indeed it is not. In a very little while it will
seem to me as good and pleasant and full as ever; but even if it _were_"
(looking at me with a lovely confidence in her eyes), "it would be no
such very great matter--_this_ life is not every thing!"

"Is not it?" say I, with a doubting shiver. "Who can tell you that? who
knows?"

"_No one_ has been to blame," she continues, with a gentle
persistence. "I should like you to see that! There has been only
a--a--_mistake_"--(her voice failing a little again), "a mistake that
has been corrected in time, and for which no one--_no one_, Nancy, is