sit with folded hands, looking on, pretending not to mind, while their husbands are run away with by others.” Maud took up the poker and carefully arranged the coals under the grate in a heap. Then she said: “Suppose a girl did what you 've been speaking of. I mean, suppose she really said such a thing to a man,--said that she cared for him, or anything like that,--what do you suppose he would think of her? Don't you fancy she would be in danger of making him think very cheaply of her?” “If she thought he were that kind of a man,” replied Lucy, “I can't understand her ever falling in love with him. Of course, I 'm not saying that he would necessarily respond by falling in love with her. She would have to take her chance of that; but I 'm sure, if he were a gentleman, she need have no fear of his thinking unworthily of her. If I had spoken to Dick in that way, even if he had never wanted to marry me, I know he would have had a soft spot for me in his heart all the rest of his life, out of which even his wife would not have quite crowded me. Why, how do we think of men whom we have refused? Do we despise them? Do we ridicule them? Some girls may, but they are not ladies. A low fellow might laugh at a woman who revealed a fondness for him which he did not return; but a gentleman, never. Her secret would be safe with him.” “Girls!” It was the voice of Mrs. Elliott speaking from the upper hall. “Do you know how late it is? It is after one o'clock.” “I suppose we might as well go to bed,” said Lucy. “There's no use sitting up to wait for women to get their rights. They won't get them to-night, I dare say; though, mark my word, some day they will.” “This affair of yours may come out all right yet,” she said hopefully, as they went upstairs together. “If it does not, you can console yourself with thinking that people in general, and especially girls, never know what is good for them till afterward. Do you remember that summer I was at the beach, what a ninny I made of myself over that little Mr. Parker? How providential it was for me that he did not reciprocate. It gives me the cold shivers when I think what might have become of me if he' had proposed.” At the door of her room Lucy said again: “Remember, you are to come to me in New York for a long visit soon. Perhaps you will find there are other people in the world then.” Maud smiled absently, and kissed her good-night. She seemed preoccupied, and did not appear to have closely followed what her lively friend was saying.