only to say:

"I fear, Mary, I should take any man for a fool who took me for
anything else."

Letty was a rather small and rather freckled girl, with the daintiest
of rounded figures, a good forehead, and fine clear brown eyes. Her
mouth was not pretty, except when she smiled--and she did not smile
often. When she did, it was not unfrequently with the tears in her
eyes, and then she looked lovely. In her manner there was an
indescribably taking charm, of which it is not easy to give an
impression; but I think it sprang from a constitutional humility,
partly ruined into a painful and haunting sense of inferiority, for
which she imagined herself to blame. Hence there dwelt in her eyes an
appeal which few hearts could resist. When they met another's, they
seemed to say: "I am nobody; but you need not kill me; I am not
pretending to be anybody. I will try to do what you want, but I am not
clever. Only I am sorry for it. Be gentle with me." To Godfrey, at
least, her eyes spoke thus.

In ten minutes or so he reappeared, far at the other end of the
yew-walk, approaching slowly, with a book, in which he seemed
thoughtfully searching as he came. When they saw him the girls
instinctively moved farther from each other, making large room for him
between them, and when he came up he silently took the place thus
silently assigned him.

"I am going to try your brains now, Letty," he said, and tapped the
book with a finger.

"Oh, please don't!" pleaded Letty, as if he had been threatening her
with a small amputation, or the loss of a front tooth.

"Yes," he persisted; "and not your brains only, Letty, but your heart,
and all that is in you."

At this even Mary could not help feeling a little frightened; and she
was glad there was no occasion for her to speak.

With just a word of introduction, Godfrey read Carlyle's translation of
that finest of Jean Paul's dreams in which he sets forth the condition
of a godless universe all at once awakened to the knowledge of the
causelessness of its own existence. Slowly, with due inflection and
emphasis--slowly, but without pause for thought or explanation--he read
to the end, ceased suddenly, and lifted his eyes.

"There, Letty," he said, "what do you think of that? There's a bit of
Sunday reading for you!"

Letty was looking altogether perplexed, and not a little frightened.

"I don't understand a word of it," she answered, gulping back her
tears. He glanced at Mary. She was whit