“But your telling him, Edward, was not telling me. Why did you not tell me?” “You might not have kept my secret, Julia. You know what naughty things are said of your sex, touching your inability to keep a secret.” “Naughty things, indeed--naughty and untrue! I'm sure, I should have kept your secret, if you desired it. But why should it be a secret?” “Why, indeed!” I muttered, as the shadow of my perverseness passed deeply over my heart. “Why, unless to protect myself from the sneers which would stifle my ambition, and the sarcasm which would have stung my heart.” “But you have no fear of these from me, Cousin Edward,” she said gently, and with dewy eyes, while her fingers slightly pressed upon my wrist. “I know not that, Cousin Julia, I somehow suspect everything and everybody now. I feel very lonely in the world--as if there was a destiny at work to make my whole life one long conflict, which I must carry on without sympathy or succor.” “Oh, these are only notions, Edward.” “Notions!” I exclaimed, giving her a bitter smile as I spoke, while my thoughts reverted to the three years of unremitting and almost uncheered labor through which I had passed. “Yes, notions only, Cousin Edward. You are full of such notions. You every now and then start up with a new one; and it makes you gloomy and discontented--” “I make no complaints, Julia.” “No, that is the worst of it. You make no complaints, I think, because you do not wish to be cured of them. You prefer nursing your supposed cause of grief, with a sort of solitary pleasure--the gratification of a haughty spirit, that is too proud to seek for solace, and to find it.” Julia had in truth touched upon the true nature of my misanthropy--of that self vexing and self-torturing spirit which too effectually blinds the heart. “But could I find it, Julia?” I asked, looking into her eyes with an expression which I began to feel was something very new to mine. “Perhaps--I think--you could,” was the half-tremulous answer, as she beheld the peculiar expression of my glance. The entrance of Mrs. Clifford, was, perhaps, for the first time, rather a relief to us both. “And so you are a lawyer, Edward? Well, who would have thought of it? It must be a very easy thing to be made a lawyer.” Julia looked at me with eyes that reddened with vexation. I felt my gorge rising; but when I reflected upon the ignorance, and the unworthy nature of the speaker, I overcame the disposition to retort, and smilingly replied:-- “It's not such hard work as bricklaying, certainly.” “Ah,” she answered, “if it were only half so profitable. But Mr. Clifford says that a lawyer now is only another name for a beggar--a sort of genteel beggar. The town's overrun with them--half of them live upon their friends.” “I trust I shall not add to the number of this class, Mrs. Clifford.” “Oh, no! I know YOU never will, Cousin Edward,” exclaimed Julia, with a flush upon her cheeks at her own temerity.