“Did Lawrence have her picture?” Mildred asked quickly, and, in the tone of her voice Oliver detected what Mildred thought was hidden away down in the deepest corner of her heart. But for this he did not spare her, and he said: “I fancied they might be engaged.” “Engaged, Oliver!” and the little hand resting on his knee trembled visibly. “No, they are not engaged yet; but they will be some time, I suppose, and they’ll make a splendid couple. You must come up to-morrow and call on Lilian. She is the sweetest, dearest girl you ever saw!” Oliver thought of _one_ exception, but he merely answered: “Tell me of her, Milly, so I can be somewhat prepared. What is she like?” “She is a little mite of a thing,” returned Mildred, “with the clearest violet-blue eyes, the tiniest mouth and nose, the longest, silkiest, golden curls, a complexion pure as wax, and the prettiest baby ways,—why, she’s afraid of everything; and in our walks I always constitute myself her body-guard, to keep the cows and dogs from looking at her.” “Does she know anything?” asked Oliver, who, taking Mildred for his criterion, could scarcely conceive of a sensible girl being afraid of dogs and cows. “Know anything!” and Mildred looked perfectly astonished. “Yes, she knows as much as any woman ever ought to know, because the men,—that is, real nice men such as a girl would wish to marry,—always prefer a wife with a sweet temper and ordinary intellect, to a spirited and more intellectual one; don’t you think they do?” Oliver did not consider himself a “real nice man,—such as a girl would wish to marry,” and so he could not answer for that portion of mankind. He only knew that for him there was but one temper, one mind, one style of beauty, and these were all embodied in Mildred Howell, who, without waiting for his answer, continued: “It is strange how Lilian and I came to love each other so much, when we are so unlike. Why, Oliver, they called me the spunkiest girl in the Seminary, and Lilian the most amiable; that’s when I first went there; but we did each other good, for she will occasionally show some spirit, while I try to govern my temper, and have not been angry in ever so long. You see, Lilian and I roomed together. I used to help her get her lessons; for somehow she couldn’t learn, and, if she sat next to me at recitation, I would tell her what to answer, until the teacher found it out, and made me stop. When Lilian first came to Charlestown, Lawrence was with her; she was fifteen then, and all the girls said they were engaged, they acted so. I don’t know how, but you can imagine, can’t you?”