"I believe you have been told correctly. We have more time in our quiet way to look after and admire the productions of the great masters. Our taste has wonderfully improved within a few years." "I have not been in town long enough to visit any of your show places yet." "How I _should_ like to see that lovely water-fall and the whole of that beautiful scene on canvas. Do you know I almost envied you a home in that beautiful house with all its picturesque surroundings." "I am truly thankful you had the kind grace to think of me at all." "How could I help it? I had a feeling the first moment I saw you that you and I were destined to be friends. Is there not a certain mysterious something--call it magnetism or instinct--that either draws us toward or repels us from every person we meet in either a greater or less degree? With me this instinct is very strong, and I obey it implicitly, never in one instance having found it to fail. I know at once who to trust and who to love. And would know, by the same unerring law of my nature, who to hate if ever I felt the least inclination to hate. The only feeling of hate I ever experienced is a strong desire to avoid all persons or things that are disagreeable to me. I love harmony the most perfect, and discord is a thing for me to flee from. I felt toward you a most decided drawing, and I felt a conviction then, as I do now, that we are to be very near and dear friends." The little angel! I could have hugged and kissed her on the spot; but I hugged her in my soul, and inwardly vowed to consecrate my life to her, if the "drawing" she felt for me could be rendered sufficiently strong to admit of such a thing. On a sudden I bethought me of the whiskered incognito, her stage attendant. I mustered courage to ask her in a half laughing way, if that fine-looking fellow she had called Charles were her brother. Instantly her manner changed from that of sweet and almost tender seriousness to an arch, quizzical one that puzzled me. "Oh no, not my brother," said she. "_Not_ her brother--a sharp pang of pain shot through me--I was getting dreadfully jealous--I looked all manner of curiosity and all manner of questions; she took pity on me and said--a smile still lurking in the corner of her eye-- "He is no more nor less than the intended future husband of the one you see before you." "The future devil! I sincerely beg your pardon, but--you take me by surprise--I regret--but really I do not feel that it can be so." "And why not?" "Truly, why not!" "He is very handsome." "That is as one thinks." "And very accomplished." "In flattery, most like." "And a most profound scholar." "In the art of making love, it would seem." "But I do not love him." "Not love him!" "No, nor never can." "Then why, my dearest young lady, do you marry him?" "You may well ask; why indeed?" "You seemed very friendly with him the day I saw you together, and happier than I could have wished you."