The best of women are frauds. Betty made that ankle the pivot of her circle for the rest of the summer. When she wanted to see Senator North look tender and worried, she puckered her brows and sighed. When she felt the promptings of her newly acquired desire to be "fussed over," she dropped suddenly upon a couch and demanded a cushion for her foot, or asked to be assisted to a hammock. She often laughed at herself; but the new experience was very sweet, and she wondered over Life's odd and unexpected sources of pleasure. XIX Senator Burleigh came up for a few days to the hotel before going West, and Betty, who had anticipated his visit, invited two of the prettiest girls she knew to assist her to entertain him. They had been at one of the hotels on the lower lake, and came to her for a few days before joining their parents. She showed Burleigh every possible attention, permitting him to eat nothing but breakfast at his hotel; but he did not see her alone for a moment. When he left, he felt that he had had three cheerful days among warm and admiring friends, but his satisfaction was far from complete. "Betty," said Senator North, one morning a fortnight later, "how much do you like Burleigh? If you had not met me, do you think you could have loved him?" "I think I could have persuaded myself that I liked him better than I ever could have liked anybody; but it would not have been love." "Are you sure?" "Oh, yes, I am sure! You know that I am sure. It may be possible to mistake liking for love, but it is not possible to mistake love for anything else. And you cannot even pretend to believe that I do not know what love is." "Oh, yes," he said softly, "I think you know." He resumed in a moment: "You are so young--I would leave you in a moment if I thought that you did not really love me, that you were deluding yourself and wasting your life. But I believe that you do; and you are happier than you would be with a man who could give you only the half that you demand. Marriage is not everything. I love you well enough to make any sacrifice for you but a foolish one. And I know that there is much less in the average marriage than in the incomplete relation we have established. And there is another marriage that is incomparably worse. I shall never let you go--so long as I can hold you--unless I am satisfied that it is for your good." "If you leave me for any Quixotic idea, I'll marry the first man that proposes to me," said Betty, lightly. "I am too happy to even consider such a possibility. There are no to-morrows when to-day is flawless--Hark! What is that?" They were on the upper lake. Over the mountains came the sonorous yet wailing, swinging yet rapt, intonation of the negro at his hymns. "There is a darky camp-meeting somewhere," said Senator North, indifferently. "I hope they don't fish."