t down. I am not facing her. With a complexion that serves
one such ill turns as mine does, one is not over-fond of _facing_
people. I am beside her. For a moment we are both silent.

"Well," say I, presently, with an unintentional tartness in my tone,
"why do not you begin? I am waiting to hear all about it! Begin!"

So Barbara begins.

"I am afraid," she says, smiling all the while, but growing as red as
the bunch of late roses in my breast, "that I looked horribly _pleased_!
One ought to look as if one did not care, ought not one?"

"Ought one?" say I, with interest, then beginning to laugh vociferously.
"At least you were not as bad as the old maid who late in life received
a very wealthy offer, and was so much elated by it that she took off all
her clothes, and kicked her bonnet round the room!"

Barbara laughs.

"No, I was not quite so bad as that."

"And how did he do it?" pursue I, inquisitively. "Did he write or speak"

"He spoke."

"And what did he say? How did he word it? Ah!"--(with a sigh)--"I
suppose you will not tell me _that_?"

She has abandoned her chair, and has fallen on her knees before me,
hiding her face in my lap. Delicious waves of color, like the petals of
a pink sweet-pea, are racing over her cheeks and throat.

"Was ever any one known to tell it?" she says, indistinctly.

"Yes," reply I, "_I_ was. I told you what Roger said, word for word--all
of you!"

"_Did_ you?"--(with an accent of astonished incredulity).

"Yes," say I, "do not you remember? I promised I would before I went
into the drawing-room that day, and, when I came out, I wanted the boys
to let me off, but they would not."

A pause.

"I wish," say I, a little impatiently, "that you would look up! Why need
you mind if you _are_ rather red? What do _I_ matter? and so--and
so--you are _pleased_!"

"_Pleased!_"

She has raised her head as I bid her, and on her face there is a sort of
scorn at the poverty and inadequacy of the expression, and yet she
replaces it with no other; only the sapphire of her eyes is dimmed and
made more tender by rising tears.

Clearly we were never meant to be joyful, we humans! In any bliss
greater than our wont, we can only hang out, to demonstrate our
felicity, the sign and standard of woe.

"Nancy!"--(taking my hand, and looking at me with wistful
earnestness)--"do you think it _can_ last? Did ever any one feel as I do
for _long_?"

"I do not know--how can I tell?" reply I, di