"I am--happier in you! Do you recollect the stormy November evening when you 'took me in?' Cold, and wet, and shivering as was the body, the heart stood more in need of comfort; and you warmed it--taught me that woman is woman still--brow-beaten, insulted, crushed! The poor, soiled flowerets of love will smile, despite of all--in the face of him, or her whose pitying hand lifts them up. Carry! you do not know what depends upon your fidelity! Have you not read in that most wondrous of books, how the evil spirit returned to the house, which, in his absence, was swept and garnished, and that the latter end of that man was worse than the first?" "Ida! my own friend! how can you hint such frightful things? I _do_ love you--very dearly? You cannot doubt me." "Not now. But will the time never come, when other claims will dispossess me of my place? Do not despise me, darling! Do not impute to me the meanness of being envious of your happiness. I rejoice with, and am proud for you--proud of your choice. He is all that a man should be--let me say it--I have never told you so before;--but is it true love expels friendship? You will be as dear to me married as single; why should your affection decrease?" "It will not!" Could it be the modest Carry who spoke? "Judge for yourself. Arthur and I have loved from childhood. He spoke to me of his hopes two years ago, but father exacted from us a promise that no love but that of brother and sister should be named between us until my school-days were at an end. Yet I knew that I was not a sister to him; and, to me, he was more than the world besides:--and with this sweet consciousness singing its song of hope and blessedness within my heart, I found room for you; and lover and friend were each the dearer for the other's company. You will understand this some day, dear Ida. You are made to be loved--you cannot exist without it, and you will achieve your destiny."