It would be dangerous to break with her. There can be no hesitancy, with the fair words of the crowd in one scale--and Ida Ross, unknown and unbeloved, in the other. Be it so!" But awakened affection had had a taste of its proper nutriment, and was not to be famished into silence. The afternoon wore heavily away in the unspoken anguish of love and pride and suspicion. Careless of remarks or conjectures, she declined dinner, and retired at once to her chamber, when she reached home. It might have been one hour;--it might have been three, that she had knelt or laid upon the floor, her head upon a stool, before the mourner for the dead bird;--weeping and thinking, and seeming to grow a year older with each flood of grief; when there came a tap at the door. "Josephine!" was the first thought--to spring to the mirror, brush the tumbled hair, and dash rosewater over the discolored cheeks, the work of the next minute; then she said sleepily--"Who is there?" "It is I--Carry!" The bolt was withdrawn, and the intruder lay, sobbing upon her breast. "Oh, Ida! how could you be angry with me?" Ida struggled with the answering drops, but they _would_ come. "I thought you had thrown me off, Carry!" "You could not--after my note." "Your note!" "I slipped it into your French Grammar, as it lay open before your eyes; and you shut the book and put it aside,--I supposed to read it at your leisure." "I did not see it." She went to her satchel, and brought forth the Grammar. "There it is!" said Carry, as a folded paper fell from within it. "Do not read it. I will tell you its contents. I asked your forgiveness for interrupting you so rudely this morning; but these public disputes lead to so much evil. Ellen was wrong; she has said so to me; and is ready to be your friend, if you consent. Her conduct was blameably thoughtless; and her quick temper could not submit to a rebuke so openly administered. I was abrupt, but it was not because I was angry with, or did not love you. Ellen's taunt was extremely provoking"-- "Stop! stop! Carry! It is I, who should sue for pardon, and excuse, if I can, my unbecoming heat, and after doubts of your friendship. I cannot tell you what a fearful warfare has waged within me;--how much incensed I was to see you and Ellen come in so lovingly, at noon;--how Ishmael-like I felt;--every man's hand against me, and mine against the universe, and Him who made it," she added, with an intonation of awe. "Can you love me after hearing this, Carry?" "Always--always!" Ellen was amazed, that afternoon, on being summoned to receive visitors, to find in them her two class-mates, and more astounded to hear from her antagonist of the morning, a frank and graceful apology for her hasty strictures upon her conduct and words. Ellen was, as she phrased it, "great upon high-flown speeches; but this was an extraordinary occasion, and demanded a deviation from ordinary rules; so I condescended, for once, to make use of simple language."