At least one was talking earnestly--the other only listened. But the mere fact of listening can be eloquent sometimes, and this girl’s face seemed made to express all things eloquently. It was a delicately molded face, with a pale complexion and the most gentle and lustrous eyes possible to imagine. As yet she was altogether immature in appearance and manner, being not more than fifteen years of age, but her slender figure gave indications of more than ordinary grace when time should have transformed its angles into curves, just as her face promised to prove even more than beautiful when a woman’s soul should shine out of those eyes, now soft as a fawn’s and innocent as a child’s. Her companion was more ordinary in appearance, yet nine people out of ten would have admired her most. She was an exceedingly pretty girl, and, being four or five years the senior of the two, possessed all the advantage of presence and of manner which such a difference in age at this period of life bestows. Her face had none of the delicate regularity of the face beside her, but her features were charmingly piquant, her complexion brilliantly fair, and her sunny, hazel eyes were full of mirth. At least they were usually full of mirth, but this evening there was a shade in them that looked like anxiety. It was she who had been talking for half an hour, while the girl who clung to her arm listened with rapt attention. As they still paced up and down in the twilight she went on: “You understand now, Aimée, how it is, and how I am almost at my wit’s end to know what to do. I declare it is almost enough to make one wish one were ugly, to be tormented as I am!” “I would not wish that,” said Aimée. “It is like a novel--only better--to be as pretty as you are, and to know that two men love you to distraction; that you are almost engaged to one, but that you love the other and are going to elope with him--” “Hush!” cried the other, with a pressure of the arm she held almost as sharp as the tone of her voice. “Think, if somebody were to hear you! I am _not_ going to elope with him! That is just the point. I have promised--but I can not, I can not! I like him--of course, I like him--but I don’t like him well enough to ruin all my life for him, to give up everything and break mamma’s heart. Aimée, I can’t do it.” “What are you going to do, then?” asked Aimée, while her eyes seemed to grow momently larger and darker and more full of interest. To an impressionable girl of fifteen, with her head full of romances, all this was thrilling beyond expression. A beautiful girl, a worldly mother, two ardent suitors, and an elopement planned--what could any romance furnish better? Yet it was here in her own every-day world, and _she_ was promoted to the dignity of receiving the confidences of the heroine. What could life hold more exciting, save the joy, of which she as yet hardly dreamed, of being a heroine herself?