“You are making mountains of mole-hills,” said Minnie, blushing again. “I never dreamed that such a promise was equivalent to ‘Certainly, sir! go and order the furniture.’ I did like Harry Lamfear exceedingly, but love was no part of the liking. I told him more than once—more than twice, since I must defend myself, that it was useless for him to expect any thing more than friendship from me. I could not refuse to speak to him—it will not do to insult a man because he wants to marry you, will it?” “Decidedly no; but then you should have refused to dance with him more than once in the evening—you should have denied yourself on more occasions than one, when he called. I saw you one morning get up from the sofa, where you were suffering actually with a headache, and dress your hair as becomingly as you knew how, with a morning-cap that was really a charming set-off to your piquante style, and go in the parlor to receive him. You told him of your indisposition of course, and his inference was, that there must have been something _more_ than friendship to rouse you in the midst of pain, to the exertion of entertaining him. Did it look like indifference?” “I was wrong there, sister,” said Minnie, rising and seating herself beside her. “Tell me what I must do.” “Be kind and courteous to all, my little pink-cheek, and do not listen with such a ready ear to the honied words that make you giddy. Do not every week or month select one on whom to bestow your favors, but treat all alike indifferently until you really find your own feelings enlisted. Then I need not advise, your own delicacy, your own natural modesty will make you every thing you ought to be. But for heaven’s sake do not give people the idea, that you are caught like a candle-fly by every glare, and wear a battered down heart after your first winter is over.” “Oh, Kate, how matter-of-fact you are! Why didn’t you say ‘pretty moth,’ and ‘withered heart?’ You shock me with your every day-isms.” “You have very fastidious ears, Minnie, and I am not jesting. There is one thing more to be said and I have done. Beware of trifling with young Freeman. He will not suffer himself to be led like his predecessors if he is serious. And if he is, as I think, merely playing your game of _flirting_, he will make you regret ever having seen him. I do not like him—I cannot look at him without a feeling of uneasiness.” “How foolish!” cried Minnie, laughing, “and how ungrateful! he is always praising my charming sister Mrs. Linden.”