"You think me weak and foolish, I know very well, Nola, because I have made such a confession as this. For all your kindness and your good heart, I know that you despise any girl who allows herself to fall in love with a man. You don't care about men, and you think we ought to have more dignity, and not to prostrate ourselves before them; and you are quite right. Only some of us can't help it." "No," said Minola sadly; "I suppose not." "There! You look all manner of contempt at me. I should like to have you painted as the Queen of the Amazons--you would look splendid. But I may trust to your friendly heart and your sympathy all the same, I know. You will pity us weaker girls, and you won't be too hard on us. I want you to help me." "Can I help you, Lucy? Shall I ask Mr. Heron if he is in love with you? I will if you like." "Oh, Nola, what nonsense! That only shows how ridiculous you think me. No, I only mean that you should give me your sympathy, and let me talk to you. And--you observe things so well--just to use your eyes for my sake. Oh, there is so much a friend may do! And he thinks so much of you, and always talks to you so freely." Yes, Minola thought to herself; he always talks to me very freely--we are good friends. If he were in love with Lucy, I dare say he would tell me. Why should he not? She tells me that she is in love with him--that is a proof of her friendship. We can think in irony as well as speak in it, and Minola was disposed at present to be a little sarcastic. She did not love such disclosures as Lucy had been making. There seemed to be a lack of that instinctive delicacy in them, which, as she fancied, might be the possession of a girl were she brought up naked in a south sea islet. Fresh and innocent as Lucy was, yet this revelation seemed wanting in pure self-respect. Perhaps, too, it was in keeping with Minola's old creed to believe that this was just the sort of girl whom most men would be sure to love. At any rate, she was for the moment in a somewhat bitter mood. Something of this must have shown itself in her expression, for Lucy said, in a tone of frightened remonstrance-- "Now, Nola, I have told you all. I have betrayed myself to you, and if you only despise me and feel angry with me, oh, what shall I do? Isn't it strange--you both came the same day here--you and he, for the first time--I mean the first time since I saw you at school. Am I to lose you too?" There was something so simple and helpless in this piteous appeal, with its implied dread of a love proving hopeless, that no irony or anger could have prevailed against it in Minola's breast. She threw her arm round the child's neck and petted and soothed her.