"Why I thought it was the confidence--the familiarity--the secrets--which form the very essence of friendship," cried Katherine; "at least so I have always heard." "True," said Julia, eagerly, "you speak true--the confidence and the secrets--but not the--the--I am not sure that I express myself well--but the intimate knowledge that one has of one's own sister--that I should think would be destructive to the delicacy of friendship." "Julia means that a prophet has never honour in his own country," cried Charles with a laugh--"a somewhat doubtful compliment to your sex, ladies, under her application of it." "But what becomes of your innate evidence of worth in friendship," asked Miss Emmerson; "I thought that was the most infallible of all kinds of testimony: surely that must bring you intimately acquainted with each other's secret foibles too." "Oh! no--that is a species of sentimental knowledge," returned Julia; "it only dwells on the loftier parts of the character, and never descends to the minute knowledge which makes us suffer so much in each other's estimation: it leaves all these to be filled by the--by the--by the--what shall I call it?" "Imagination," said Katherine, dryly. "Well, by the imagination then: but it is an imagination that is purified by sentiment, and"-- "Already rendered partial by the innate evidence of worth," interrupted Charles. Julia had lost herself in the mazes of her own ideas, and changed the subject under a secret suspicion that her companions were amusing themselves at her expense; she, therefore, proceeded directly to urge the request of Anna Miller. "Oh! aunt, now we are on the subject of friends, I wish to request you would authorize me to invite my Anna to pass the next winter with us in Park-Place." "I confess, my love," said Miss Emmerson, glancing her eye at Katherine, "that I had different views for ourselves next winter: has not Miss Miller a married sister living in town?" "Yes, but she has positively refused to ask the dear girl, I know," said Julia. "Anna is not a favourite with her sister." "Very odd that," said the aunt gravely; "there must be a reason for her dislike then: what can be the cause of this unusual distaste for each other?" "Oh!" cried Julia, "it is all the fault of Mrs. Welton; they quarrelled about something, I don't know what, but Anna assures me Mrs. Welton is entirely in fault." "Indeed!--and you are perfectly sure that Mrs. Welton is in fault--perhaps Anna has, however, laid too strong a stress upon the error of her sister," observed the aunt. "Oh! not at all, dear aunt. I can assure you, on my own knowledge," continued Julia, "Anna was anxious for a reconciliation, and offered to come and spend the winter with her sister, but Mrs. Welton declared positively that she would not have so selfish a creature round her children: now this Anna told me herself one day, and wept nearly to break her heart at the time."