"I know my misdeeds are legion, and my good works, like Parson Wilkins' text, 'way off and hard to find,' but 'evil,' indeed, as well as 'few, have been the years of my pilgrimage,' if I had anything to do with the 'formation of Ida Ross' character!" said Ellen Morris, clasping her hands deprecatingly. "Ellen! Ellen!" remonstrated Carry, "think what effect a remark like that would produce! Would it increase her confidence in you or us? Would she not avoid us more then ever? She is an orphan, and should be dealt with more charitably, than if her feelings had expanded in a home like yours." "You do not believe she could love anybody!" said one of the group. "Certainly I do, and I mean she shall love me. You would make the same resolution, if you knew her as I do." "An idea strikes me, Carry," said the incorrigible Ellen.--"She and we have affinity for each other--water and oil--you are the alkali, which is to reconcile us; we shall be a soap manufactory, to cleanse and regenerate the world." "A little vinegar facilitates the process, does it not?" asked Carry, good-humoredly. "You have come to a poor market for it, my good Alkali; upon second thoughts, you must leave me out of the combination altogether--salt, Attic, particularly, being detrimental to the integrity of the article in question." "Soap boiling and Attica!" said Anna Talbot, who was reading a little apart, "your conversation takes an extended range to-day, young ladies." "Both are warm places," returned Ellen. "Our imaginations needed thawing after perching so long upon the North Pole, _id est_, Ida Ross." "You have offended Carry," said Emma, apprehensively, as the former walked towards the other room. "Not offended, but grieved," she replied, with sweet gravity. "I should not love Ellen as I do, if I did not believe her heart to be oftener in the right place than her tongue." She passed into the recitation room, and there, her head bent upon a desk, was Ida! Carry was transfixed with dismay. The door was a-jar--she had heard it all! But the relaxed limbs--the unmoving figure--was she then asleep? A minute's stay confirmed this opinion; and greatly relieved, she tripped lightly out by another door. Ida did not sleep. She had left the larger room at the close of morning recitations, seeking in the comparative quiet of this, some ease from a severe headache. She did not think of concealment. After the gossip of the thoughtless circle turned upon herself, she still supposed that her vicinity was known; that their pretended unconsciousness was a covering for a renewal of mortifications. To move would have been matter for triumph, she was not disposed to supply. So unjust does suspicion make us!