The night is in Margaret's soul too, and not such a bland white night as that spread outside for elves to dance in. 'I am going to say such a silly thing,' says Prue presently, heralding her speech by a fictitious laugh. 'If it were not rather dark, I do not think that I should dare to say anything so foolish. I am going to ask you such a stupid question; I am sure you will not consider it worth answering. Do you think it possible--ha! ha! I really am idiotic to-night--that he might ever--not now, of course--if you had seen how distressed, how heart-broken he was to-day at my crying, you would not have thought there was much danger of its happening now--but,' her speech growing slow, and halting with quick feverish breaths between, 'do you think it is just possible that sometime--many years hence--twenty--thirty--he--might grow--a little--tired of me? There! there!' her utterance waxing rapid and eager again; 'do not answer! Of course, I do not mean you to answer!' Peggy is thankful for the permission to be silent thus accorded to her; but she does not long profit by it. 'I think I had rather that you did answer, too,' says Prue, with a quick uneasy change of mind. 'It seems senseless to ask questions and get no answer to them; and, after all, there can be but one answer to mine.' Peggy shivers. There can indeed be but one answer; but how dare she give it? 'Why do not you speak?' cries Prue, growing restless under her sister's silence. 'Did not you hear me say that I should like you to answer me after all? I believe you are asleep!' 'How can I answer, dear?' replies Peggy sadly. 'I have so little acquaintance with men and their ways; and I am not sure,' with a small bitter laugh, 'that what I do know of them is very much to their credit.' There is a ring of such sharp hopelessness in her tone as to arrest the attention of even the preoccupied younger girl. 'You were not very lucky either, Peggy,' she says softly, rubbing her cheek caressingly to and fro against Margaret's shoulder. 'Why do I say _either_?' catching herself quickly up. 'As if I were not lucky--luckier than anybody; but you were _un_lucky. Oh, how unbearable to be unlucky in that of all things! And I was not very kind to you, was I?' Peggy's heart swells. Her lips are passing in a trembling caress over her sister's hair. 'Not very, dear.'