is. "I should have wept my life
away. But Margaret is not like me. She can get interested in work and
other things, and forget a hapless love, and outlive it. It would kill
me in a month."

Margaret rose very quietly, put her frame by in the corner, and left the
room. Beatrice, who had been silent for some time, looked up then with
expressive eyes.

"It is killing her, Eva. My father told me so a week since. He says he
is quite sure that the Countess is mistaken in fancying that she is
getting over it."

"She! She is as strong as a horse. And I don't think she ever felt it
much! Not as I should have done. I should have taken the veil that
very day. Earth would have been a dreary waste to me from that instant.
I could not have borne to see a man again. However many years I might
have lived, no sound but the _Miserere_--"

"But, Eva! I thought thou wert going to die in a month."

"It is very rude to interrupt, Marie. No sound but the _Miserere_ would
ever have broken the chill echoes of my lonely cell, nor should any
raiment softer than sackcloth have come near my seared and blighted
heart!"

"I should think it would get seared, with nothing but sackcloth," put in
the irrepressible little Lady of Eu.

"But what good would all that do, Eva?"

"Good, Beatrice! What canst thou mean? I tell thee, I could not have
borne any thing else."

"I don't believe much in thy sackcloth, Eva. Thou wert making ever such
a fuss the other day because the serge of thy gown touched thy neck and
rubbed it, and Levina ran a ribbon down to keep it off thee."

"Don't be impertinent, Marie. Of course, in such a case as that, I
could not think of mere inconveniences."

"Well, if I could not think of inconveniences when I was miserable, I
would try to make less fuss over them when I was happy."

"I am not happy, foolish child."

"Why, what's the matter? Did Sir William look at thee only twenty-nine
times, instead of thirty, when he was here?"

"Thou art the silliest maiden of whom any one ever heard!"

"No, Eva; her match might be found, I think," said Beatrice.

Marie went off into convulsions of laughter, and flung herself on the
rushes to enjoy it with more freedom.

"I wonder which of you two is the funnier!" said she.

"What on earth is there comical about _me_?" exclaimed Eva, the more put
out because Beatrice and Doucebelle were both joining in Marie's
amusement.

"It is of no use to tell thee, Eva