"Of course," said Marie by way of postscript, "if Sir William had been badly hurt in a tournament, or anything of that sort, I could understand her worrying about it: or if he had told her that he did not love her, I could understand that: but she worries for nothing at all! If he does not tell her that he loves her every time he comes, she fancies he doesn't." "Marie, don't be so silly!" "Thanks, I'll try not," said Marie keenly. "And she calls that love! What dost thou think, Beatrice?" "Why, I think it does not sound much like it, Marie--in thy description." "Why, what notion of love hast thou?" said Eva scornfully. "I have not forgotten how thou wert wont to talk of thy betrothed." "But I never professed to love Leo," said Beatrice, looking up. "How could I, when I had not seen him?" "Dost thou want to see, in order to love?" sentimentally inquired Eva. "No," answered Beatrice, thoughtfully. "But I want to know. I might easily love some one whom I had not seen with my eyes, if he were always sending me messages and doing kind actions for me: but I could not love somebody who was to me a mere name, and nothing more." "It is plain thou hast no sensitiveness, Beatrice." "I'd rather have sense,--wouldn't you?" said little Marie. "As if one could not have both!" sneered Eva. "Well, if one could, I should have thought thou wouldst," retorted Marie. "Well! I don't understand you!" said Eva. "I cannot care to be loved with less than the whole heart. I should not thank you for just the love that you can spare from other people." "But should not one have some to spare for other people?" suggested Marie. "That sounds as if one's heart were a box," said Beatrice, "that would hold so much and no more. Is it not more like a fountain, that can give out perpetually and always have fresh supplies within?" "Yes, for the beloved one," replied Eva, warmly. "For all," answered Beatrice. "That is a narrow heart which will hold but one person." "Well, I would rather be loved with the whole of a narrow heart than with a piece of a broad one." "O Eva!" "What dost thou mean, Doucebelle?" said Eva, sharply, turning on her new assailant. "Indeed I would! The man who loves me must love me supremely--must care for nothing but me: must find his sweetest reward for every thing in my smile, and his bitterest pain in my displeasure. That is what I call love." "Well! I should call that something else--if Margaret wouldn't scold," murmured Marie in an undertone. "What is that, Marie?" asked Margaret, with a smile. "Self-conceit; and plenty of it," said the child. "Ask Father Bruno what he thinks, Beatrice," suggested Margaret, after a gentle "Hush!" to the somewhat too plain-spoken Marie. "Thou canst do it, but it would not come so well from us." "Dost thou mean to say I am conceited, little piece of impertinence?" inquired Eva, in no dulcet tones.