"I expected you would be, and so I determined to watch you. _You_ watched me yesterday. It was not fair. When one is alone one indulges in all kinds of moods; and you might have seen me make myself ugly and foolish by pouting, grimacing, frowning, or smiling, just as the mood obliged me. I don't like to be caught unawares. I choose to smooth my face down so," looking gravely, "when I am watched. There is an expression I wear as a vizor; it's this." As a three-year old child looks, who, being told not to smile, frowns, that it may appear grave, so looked she. Then, breaking into a sudden smile: "I watched you frown. You stared at my poor little house as though you could have burnt it up with your eyes. How you flung your impatience at the tiny fly that annoyed you! 'Oh this treacherous woman!' you thought; 'how glibly she made the word of promise to the ear to break it to the hope!' Did you not think all this and as much more as would take me twenty minutes to tell? I watched you just as steadily as you watched me yesterday. I saw your weakness. Did you see mine? No--my hat hid my face. You couldn't see my eyes. And unless you see the eyes you can't tell what is going on in the mind." "No, nor when you see the eyes can you always tell what is going on. It would be a delightful privilege," said I, looking steadily at her, "to be able to interpret those fiery hieroglyphics in which the soul writes her thoughts upon the eyes." "I don't think so," she replied. "There would be little pleasure in life if we could read one another's thoughts." "There would be no hypocrisy, at all events; we should have to speak the truth." "And would you like that?" she asked. "Would the plain heiress like to hear her lover declare that his only motive in offering her marriage was to get her money? Would the father like to hear that the reason of his son's affection is that he may not be forgotten in his will? Life is a great mirage. Let it alone--pray, let it alone. Don't pour the light of truth on it, or it will vanish like a rainbow when the storm is over." "I thought, Mrs. Fraser, you were so enamoured of truth?" "Yes, among my friends. It pleases me to speak the truth, and I choose to hear the truth spoken. I hate compliments, and fine language, and the gingerbread splendour of _politeness_, as it is called. But it is not because I love truth that I would rob the world, which I hate, of the pleasure of telling lies." "You spoke of my weakness just now. What weakness did my face or behaviour illustrate?" "Impatience." "Nothing worse?" "If I had remarked anything worse, I should have let you go away." "Allow me to open this gate. You will come and see my flowers?" "It would not be fair in me to refuse you after keeping you waiting so long." I held the gate open. She passed from her garden into mine.