"Certainly one so learned in the subject need not dread a cross-examination," cried the youth, in her own manner. "Well, proceed," cried the lady. "I have driven aunt Margaret from the field, and you will fare no better, I can assure you." "Men, you say, are too gross to feel a pure friendship; in the first place, please to explain yourself on this point." "Why I mean, that your friendships are generally interested; that it requires services and good offices to support it." {interested = not pure, having an ulterior motive} "While that of women depends on--" "Feeling alone." "But what excites this feeling?" asked Charles with a smile. "What? why sympathy--and a knowledge of each other's good qualities." "Then you think Miss Miller has more good qualities than Katherine Emmerson," said Weston. "When did I ever say so?" cried Julia in surprise. "I infer it from your loving her better, merely," returned the young man with a little of Miss Emmerson's dryness. "It would be difficult to compare them," said Julia after a moment's pause. "Katherine is in the world, and has had an opportunity of showing her merit; that Anna has never enjoyed. Katherine is certainly a most excellent girl, and I like her very much; but there is no reason to think that Anna will not prove as fine a young woman as Katherine, when put to the trial." "Pray," said the young lawyer with great gravity, "how many of these bosom, these confidential friends can a young woman have at the same time?" "One, only one--any more than she could have two lovers," cried Julia quickly. "Why then did you find it necessary to take that one from a set, that was untried in the practice of well-doing, when so excellent a subject as your cousin Katherine offered?" "But Anna I know, I feel, is every thing that is good and sincere, and our sympathies drew us together. Katherine I loved naturally." "How naturally?" "Is it not natural to love your relatives?" said Julia in surprise. "No," was the brief answer. "Surely, Charles Weston, you think me a simpleton. Does not every parent love its child by natural instinct?" "No: no more than you love any of your amusements from instinct. If the parent was present with a child that he did not know to be his own, would instinct, think you, discover their vicinity?" "Certainly not, if they had never met before; but then, as soon as he knew it to be his, he would love it from nature." "It is a complicated question, and one that involves a thousand connected feelings," said Charles. "But all love, at least all love of the heart, springs from the causes you mentioned to your aunt--good offices, a dependence on each other, and habit." "Yes, and nature too," said the young lady rather positively; "and I contend, that natural lore, and love from sympathy, are two distinct things." "Very different, I allow," said Charles; "only I very much doubt the durability of that affection which has no better foundation than fancy."