profound sentiment.

"Of course we do not expect you to see this with our eyes, Bella, but
we're not blind, for all that. Later on came the project for fetching
over Tony Butler, when Alice suggested that Mr. Maitland was to drive me
over to the Burns ide--"

"Was that so very ungenerous, then?"

"In the way it was done, my dear,--in the way it was done. In that ha,
ha, ha! manner, as though to say, 'Had n't you both better go off on a
lark to-morrow that will set us all talking of you?'"

"No, no! I'll not listen to this," cried Bella, angrily; "these are not
motives to attribute to my sister."

"Ask herself; let her deny it, that's all; but, as Sally says, 'There 's
no playing against a widow, because she knows every card in your hand.'"

"I really had no idea they were so dangerous," said Bella, recovering
all her good-humor again.

"You may, perhaps, find it out one day. Mind, I 'm not saying Alice is
not very handsome, and has not the biggest blue eyes in the world, which
she certainly does not make smaller in the way she uses them; or that
any one has a finer figure, though some do contrive to move through a
room without catching in the harp or upsetting the china. Men, I take
it, are the best judges, and they call her perfection."

"They cannot think her more beautiful than she is."

"Perhaps not, dear; and as you are so like as to be constantly
mistaken--"

"Oh, Beck! surely this is not fair," said she, and so imploringly that
the other's voice softened down as she said,--"I never meant to be rude;
but my head is gone wild to-day; for, after all, when matters had gone
so far, Alice had no right to come in in this fashion; and, as Sally
says, 'Why did she never encourage him till she saw his attentions
addressed to another?'"

"I never perceived that she gave Mr. Maitland any encouragement. Yes,
you may hold up your hands, Beck, and open your eyes very wide; but I
repeat what I have said."

"That's a matter of taste, I suppose," said Beck, with some irritation.
"There are various sorts of encouragements: as Sally says, 'A look will
go further with one than a lock of your hair with another.'"

"But, really, Sally would seem to have a wisdom like Solomon's on these
subjects," said Bella.

"Yes; and what's more, she has acquired it without any risk or peril.
She had neither to drive half over a county with a gentleman alone,
or pass a good share of a night walking with him in the alleys of a
gard