But Garda never had much to say about Aunt Katrina. She looked at Margaret with an unusually serious expression in her dark eyes; "I have something to tell you, Margaret. You know how wrong you have thought me in liking Lucian as I did; what do you say, then, to my liking somebody who is very different--Mr. Winthrop? What do you say to my marrying him? Not now; when I am two or three years older. He has always been so kind to me, and I like people who are kind. Of course you are ever so much surprised; but perhaps not more so than I am myself. I hope you won't dislike it; one of the pleasantest things about it to me is that it will keep me near you." Margaret did not say whether she was surprised or not. But she took the girl in her arms, and held her close. "How much you care about it!--I believe you care more than I do," said Garda, putting her head down on Margaret's shoulder contentedly. "No," answered Margaret, "that is impossible, isn't it? It is only that those who are older always realize such things more." "Well, I don't want to realize anything more just at present," said Garda. She left her friend, and standing long enough to lift her rounded arms above her head in a long stretch, she threw herself down on a low couch. "_Oh_, I'm so sleepy! And I'm hungry too. I wish you would let me have my coffee in here, Margaret; then I could talk to you and tell you all about it. Don't you want to hear all about it?" Margaret had risen to ring for Telano. "Of course," she said, as she crossed the room. "Let me see," began Garda, in a reviewing tone. "I went to sleep. Then I woke up; and after a while I got frightened." She put her hands under her head and closed her eyes. Presently she began to laugh. "That's all there is to tell; yes, really. I got frightened--the barren was so dark and so large behind me." She said no more. As she had once remarked of herself, she was not a narrator. Margaret did not question her; she was clearing one of the tables for the coffee. After a while Garda, still with her eyes closed, spoke again: "Margaret." "Well?" "You will have to tell me all the things I mustn't say and do." "You will know them without my telling." "Never in the world." A few minutes more of silence, and then Garda's voice a second time: "Margaret." "Well?" "Tell me you are pleased, or I won't go on with it." "Oh, Garda, that's not the tone--" "Yes, it is. The very one! Don't be afraid, we like each other, he likes me in his way, and that will do; that is, it will do if you will tell me how to please him." "You must ask him that." "Oh, _he'll_ tell; his principal occupation for a long time is going to be the discovery of my faults." But as she looked up at Margaret, re-awakened and laughing, it did not seem to the latter woman that he would be able to find many.