"I was going to say--'meaning'--" he almost whispered back. "Well--?" Honor drawled indifferently. "Take it off then--it is the only unbecoming thing about you." "I infer," returned Honor, slightly arching her brows, "that you expect me to obey your word of command?" "Which I spoke without the meanest right to do so, I suppose?" Vivian said humbly, "in that case, I cancel it and apologize." "That is still, almost another command," she retorted provokingly. "How so?" asked her listener, becoming interested. "For pardon," Honor said, "I never knew a man who did not flatter himself that his apology satisfied for the grossest indiscretion." He stood aimlessly up, and knocked a withered leaf of oleander from a tall branch that scented the spot where they were sitting, but instead of returning to his seat, he leaned his crossed arms on the back of her broad chair, and looking down on her, answered: "Why are you a little less generous to us, poor unfortunates than you are to every one else?" He was so gentle to her, he could not reproach her with a fault, and he had therefore called this a less degree of generosity. Honor began to feel the effects of playing with dangerous tools, but without knowing that such an experience, is the greatest danger that can beset an untried life. "How rashly you do presume, Mr. Standish," said Honor, "as if you could tell, positively, what I thought of 'you poor unfortunates.'" "As if you could help showing us, your lack of appreciation in every possible way," he returned, still leaning on the cushioned back of the chair, where she rested her head languidly. "Then, let it be so, for if you judge me by my action only, without bringing any of your own calculations to bear, I will be satisfied with the result." "Miss Edgeworth," began he, changing his tone to one of curious interest and earnestness, "have you a bosom friend?" Honor looked suddenly up at him, and grew serious. "I have acquaintances who presume to question me, as though they had the rights of one," she said, sinking lazily back in her chair. "Then, they usurp _somebody's_ privileges, by so doing--do they not?" The girl looked indignantly at him, and only withdrew her powerful glance slowly, as she said: "Mr. Standish, I find it strange, that you should think me utterly different from other girls; pray, undeceive yourself I have my friends, and loves, and follies, and caprices like the rest and will have all my life. I expect to to be just as foolish in my love affairs some day, as you men generally consider most girls to be." "I hope so," he answered meaningly, and as she rose to leave the conservatory, for another dance, she heard him mutter: "for my sake." CHAPTER XXVII. "He whom thou fearest will, to ease its pain, Lay his cold hand upon thy aching heart, Soothe the terrors of thy troubled brain, And bid the shadows of earth's griefs depart." --_A Proctor_