general--always."

"Oh, that I am idle and extravagant. Well, I am not fit to be a poor
man. I should not have made a bad fellow if I had been rich."

"You would have done your duty in that state of life to which it has
not pleased God to call you," said Mary, laughing.

"Well, I couldn't do my duty as a clergyman, any more than you could do
yours as a governess. You ought to have a little fellow-feeling there,
Mary."

"I never said you ought to be a clergyman. There are other sorts of
work. It seems to me very miserable not to resolve on some course and
act accordingly."

"So I could, if--" Fred broke off, and stood up, leaning against the
mantel-piece.

"If you were sure you should not have a fortune?"

"I did not say that. You want to quarrel with me. It is too bad of
you to be guided by what other people say about me."

"How can I want to quarrel with you? I should be quarrelling with all
my new books," said Mary, lifting the volume on the table. "However
naughty you may be to other people, you are good to me."

"Because I like you better than any one else. But I know you despise
me."

"Yes, I do--a little," said Mary, nodding, with a smile.

"You would admire a stupendous fellow, who would have wise opinions
about everything."

"Yes, I should." Mary was sewing swiftly, and seemed provokingly
mistress of the situation. When a conversation has taken a wrong turn
for us, we only get farther and farther into the swamp of awkwardness.
This was what Fred Vincy felt.

"I suppose a woman is never in love with any one she has always
known--ever since she can remember; as a man often is. It is always
some new fellow who strikes a girl."

"Let me see," said Mary, the corners of her mouth curling archly; "I
must go back on my experience. There is Juliet--she seems an example
of what you say. But then Ophelia had probably known Hamlet a long
while; and Brenda Troil--she had known Mordaunt Merton ever since they
were children; but then he seems to have been an estimable young man;
and Minna was still more deeply in love with Cleveland, who was a
stranger. Waverley was new to Flora MacIvor; but then she did not fall
in love with him. And there are Olivia and Sophia Primrose, and
Corinne--they may be said to have fallen in love with new men.
Altogether, my experience is rather mixed."

Mary looked up with some roguishness at Fred, and that look of hers was
very dear to him, though the eyes wer