know. You've done that, for so long, little
justice."

Maggie waited a moment. "For so long? You mean you've thought--?"

"I mean, my dear, that I've seen. I've seen, week after week, that YOU
seemed to be thinking--of something that perplexed or worried you. Is it
anything for which I'm in any degree responsible?"

Maggie summoned all her powers. "What in the world SHOULD it be?"

"Ah, that's not for me to imagine, and I should be very sorry to have
to try to say! I'm aware of no point whatever at which I may have failed
you," said Charlotte; "nor of any at which I may have failed any one
in whom I can suppose you sufficiently interested to care. If I've been
guilty of some fault I've committed it all unconsciously, and am only
anxious to hear from you honestly about it. But if I've been mistaken
as to what I speak of--the difference, more and more marked, as I've
thought, in all your manner to me--why, obviously, so much the
better. No form of correction received from you could give me greater
satisfaction."

She spoke, it struck her companion, with rising, with extraordinary
ease; as if hearing herself say it all, besides seeing the way it was
listened to, helped her from point to point. She saw she was right--that
this WAS the tone for her to take and the thing for her to do, the thing
as to which she was probably feeling that she had in advance, in
her delays and uncertainties, much exaggerated the difficulty. The
difficulty was small, and it grew smaller as her adversary continued
to shrink; she was not only doing as she wanted, but had by this time
effectively done it and hung it up. All of which but deepened Maggie's
sense of the sharp and simple need, now, of seeing her through to the
end. "'If' you've been mistaken, you say?"--and the Princess but barely
faltered. "You HAVE been mistaken."

Charlotte looked at her splendidly hard. "You're perfectly sure it's ALL
my mistake?"

"All I can say is that you've received a false impression."

"Ah then--so much the better! From the moment I HAD received it I knew I
must sooner or later speak of it--for that, you see, is, systematically,
my way. And now," Charlotte added, "you make me glad I've spoken. I
thank you very much."

It was strange how for Maggie too, with this, the difficulty seemed to
sink. Her companion's acceptance of her denial was like a general pledge
not to keep things any worse for her than they essentially had to be; it
positively helped