"Do you love me, master? no?" For Minola had, among other things, been teaching Lucy to read Shakespeare, and Lucy had just become enamored of Ariel's tender question, and was delighted to turn it to her own account. "Dearly, my delicate Ariel," said Minola, carrying on the quotation; and Lucy positively crimsoned with a double delight, having her quotation understood and answered, and an assurance of affection given. "Why don't you let down your hair, Nola? Do let me see it now completely down. I'll do it--allow me." And she sprang up, came behind Minola, and "undid" all her hair, so that it fell around her back and shoulders. Minola could hardly keep from blushing to be thus made a picture of and openly admired. "There, that is perfectly beautiful! You look like Lady Godiva, or like the Fair One with Locks of Gold, if you prefer that. Did you ever read the story of 'The Fair One with Locks of Gold,' when you were a little girl? Oh, please leave your hair just as it is, and let me look at it for awhile. Do you remember Lady Limpenny's nonsense to-day?" Minola allowed her to please herself, and they began to talk; but after the first joy of coming in, Lucy seemed a little _distraite_, and not quite like herself. She fell into little moments of silence every now and then, and sometimes looked up into Minola's face as if she were going to say something, and then stopped. Minola saw that her friend had something on her mind, but thought it best not to ask her any questions, feeling sure that if Lucy had anything she wished to say, Lucy would not keep it long unsaid. After a moment's pause, "Nola!" "Yes, dear." "You don't much like men in general?" "Well, Lucy dear, I don't know that anybody much likes men in general, or women either. Good Christians say that they love all their brothers and sisters, but I don't suppose it's with a very ardent love." "But you rather go in for not liking men as a rule, don't you?" Minola was a little amused by the words, "go in for not liking men." They seemed to be what she knew Lucy never meant them for--a sort of rebuke to the affectation which would formally pose itself as misanthropic. Minola had of late begun to entertain doubts as to whether a certain amount of half-conscious egotism and affectation did not mingle in her old-time proclamations of a dislike to men. "I think I rather did go in for not liking men, Lucy; but I think I am beginning to be a little penitent. Perhaps I was rather general in my ideas; perhaps the men I knew best were not very fair specimens of the human race; perhaps men in general don't very much care what I think of them." "Any man would care if he knew you, especially if he saw you with your hair down like that. But, anyhow, you don't dislike _all_ men?" "Oh, no, dear. How could I dislike your father, Lucelet?"