"I merely asked the question," I answered, closing my work box, and drawing it nearer, so that her depredating fingers could not reach it. She had already destroyed half its contents. "I do like somebody a great deal better," she said, tossing her hair over her forehead and veiling her eyes; "but if you guessed till doomsday, you could not imagine who it is." "I pity him, whoever it may be," said I, laughing. "Why?" "You are no more fit to be a wife, Madge, than a child of five years old. You have no more thought or consideration, foresight or care." "I am two years older than you are, notwithstanding." "I fear if you live to be a hundred, you will never have the qualities necessary to secure your own happiness and that of another in the close, knitting bonds of wedded life." I spoke more seriously than I intended. I was thinking of Mr. Regulus, and most devoutly hoped for his sake, this wild, nondescript girl would never reach his heart through the medium of his vanity. She certainly paid him the most dangerous kind of flattery, because it was indirect. "You do not know what a sensible man might make of me," she said, shaking her head. "I really wish,--I do not know--but I sometimes think"-- She stopped and leaned her head on her hand, and her hair fell shadingly over her face. "What, Margaret? I should like exceedingly to know your inmost thoughts and feelings. You seem to think and feel so little;--and yet, in every woman's heart there must be a fountain,--or else what a desert waste,--what a dreary wilderness it must be." She did not speak, but put both hands over her face and bent it downwards, while her shoulders moved up and down with a spasmodic motion. I thought she was shaking with suppressed laughter; and though I could not imagine what had excited her mirth, I had known her convulsed by a ridiculous thought of her own, in the midst of general seriousness. But all at once unmistakable sobs broke forth, and I found she was crying heartily, genuinely,--crying without any self control, with all the abandonment of a child. "Margaret!" I exclaimed, laying my hand gently on her quivering shoulder, "what is the matter? What can have excited you in this manner? Don't, Madge,--you terrify me." "I can't help it," she sobbed. "Now I have began, I can't stop. O dear, what a fool I am! There is nothing the matter with me. I don't know what makes me cry; but I can't help it,--I hate myself,--I can't bear myself, and yet I can't change myself. Nobody that I care for will ever love me. I am such a hoyden--such a romp--I disgust every one that comes near me; and yet I can't be gentle and sweet like you, if I die. I used to think because I made everybody laugh, they liked me. People said, 'Oh! there's Madge, she will keep us alive.' And I thought it was a fine thing to be called Wild Madge, and Meg the Dauntless; I begin to hate the names; I begin to blush when I think of myself."