Yes, they were children in one sense, and in another the man and woman was strong within them, and Everard saw something in the girl’s eyes which startled him, and made his heart throb quickly as he, too, thought “_it might have been_.” But with the instincts of a noble, true man he forced the new-born feeling down, and taking both her hands in his held them while he said: “You must forgive me, Bee, for seeming to insult you with words which were a mere farce. You have been my friend,—the best I ever had,—and your friendship and society are very dear to me, who never knew a sister’s love. Can I keep them still after showing you just the craven coward and sneak I am?” “Yes, Everard, you may trust me. I will always be your friend, and your wife’s friend as well,” Beatrice replied, and then Everard went away, and she was left alone to think of the story she had heard, and to realize more and more all she had lost in losing Everard. The boy, whom she had teased, and ridiculed, and tormented, and who had likened her to his grandmother, had become so necessary to her in his fresh young manhood, that it was hard to give him up; but Bee was equal to the emergency, and with a little laugh she said: “On the whole I am glad there is one man whom I cannot get upon my string, as Aunt Rachel would say; but that this man should be the boy who I once vowed should offer himself to me and be refused, or I would build a church in Omaha, is mortifying to my pride. He has offered and been refused, and so the church obligation is null and void. But I must do something as a memorial of this foolishness, which I never dreamed of until to-night. I wonder if Sister Rhoda Baker don’t want something for her church by this time. I’ll go and see to-morrow, and take her mother to ride. It’s an age since I gave her an airing, and my purple velvet will contrast beautifully with her quilted hood and black shawl.” Bee Belknap was a queer compound, and when, next morning, the distant relative who lived with her as chaperon, and whom she called Aunt Rachel, said to her: “What was that Forrest here for so late? I thought he’d never go,” she answered, readily: “He was here to ask me to marry him, and I refused him flat.” “You refused him! Are you crazy, Beatrice?” Aunt Rachel exclaimed, putting down her coffee-cup and staring blankly at the young girl, who replied: “Yes. Have you any objections?” “Objections! Beatrice Belknap! I thought this was sure. See if you don’t go through the woods and take up with a crooked stick at last. Do you know how old you are?” “Yes, auntie. I am twenty-three; just eleven months and fifteen days older than Everard, and in seven years more I shall be thirty, and an old maid. After that, tortures cannot wring my age from me. Honestly, though, Everard was not badly hurt. He will recover in time, and maybe marry,—well, marry Rossie; who knows?”