ara.

"Well, I shall try and finish my blue merino for the occasion. What fun
it will be! I never was on a ship when it was launched, and I think it
will be something perfectly splendid!"

"But doesn't it sometimes seem sad to think that after all this Moses
will leave us to be gone so long?"

"What do I care?" said Sally, tossing back her long hair as she brushed
it, and then stopping to examine one of her eyelashes.

"Sally dear, you often speak in that way," said Mara, "but really and
seriously, you do yourself great injustice. You could not certainly have
been going on as you have these six months past with a man you did not
care for."

"Well, I do care for him, 'sort o','" said Sally; "but is that any
reason I should break my heart for his going?--that's too much for any
man."

"But, Sally, you _must_ know that Moses loves you."

"I'm not so sure," said Sally, freakishly tossing her head and laughing.

"If he did not," said Mara, "why has he sought you so much, and taken
every opportunity to be with you? I'm sure I've been left here alone
hour after hour, when my only comfort was that it was because my two
best friends loved each other, as I know they must some time love some
one better than they do me."

The most practiced self-control must fail some time, and Mara's voice
faltered on these last words, and she put her hands over her eyes. Sally
turned quickly and looked at her, then giving her hair a sudden fold
round her shoulders, and running to her friend, she kneeled down on the
floor by her, and put her arms round her waist, and looked up into her
face with an air of more gravity than she commonly used.

"Now, Mara, what a wicked, inconsistent fool I have been! Did you feel
lonesome?--did you care? I ought to have seen that; but I'm selfish, I
love admiration, and I love to have some one to flatter me, and run
after me; and so I've been going on and on in this silly way. But I
didn't know you cared--indeed, I didn't--you are such a deep little
thing. Nobody can ever tell what you feel. I never shall forgive myself,
if you have been lonesome, for you are worth five hundred times as much
as I am. You really do love Moses. I don't."

"I do love him as a dear brother," said Mara.

"Dear fiddlestick," said Sally. "Love is love; and when a person loves
all she can, it isn't much use to talk so. I've been a wicked sinner,
that I have. Love? Do you suppose I would bear with Moses Pennel all his
ins and