"Why should you lose both--why should you lose either?" Minola said. "I can promise you for one, Lucy dear; and if I could promise you for the other too, you might be sure of him. He must be a very insensible person, Lucy, who fails to appreciate you. Only don't make it too plain, dear, to any one but me. They say that men like to do the love-making for themselves--and you have not the slightest need to go out of your way. Tell me--does he know anything of this?" "Oh, no, Nola." "Nor guess anything at all?" "Oh, no--I am sure not--I don't think so. You didn't guess anything--now, did you?--and how could he?" Minola felt a little glad to hear of this--for the dignity of womanhood, she said to herself. But she did not know how long it would last, for Lucy was not a person likely to accomplish great efforts of self-control, for the mere sake of the abstract dignity of womanhood. For the moment, all Minola could do was to express full sympathy with her friend, and at the same time to counsel her gently not to betray her secret. Lucy went to her bedroom at last, much fluttering and quivering, but also relieved and encouraged, and she fell asleep, for all her love pains, long before Minola did. "She will be very happy," Minola sat thinking, when she was alone. "She has a great deal already: a loving father, and mother, and sister; a happy home, where she is sheltered against everything; a future all full of brightness. He will love her--I suppose. She's very pretty, and sweet, and obliging; and he is simple and manly, and would be drawn by her pure, winning ways; and men like him are fond of women who don't profess to be strong. Well, if I can help her, I will do so--it will be something to see her completely happy, and him too." Whereupon, for no apparent reason, the tears sprang into Minola's eyes, and she found a vain wish arising in her heart that she had never renewed her acquaintance with Lucy Money, never been persuaded by Mary Blanchet to visit her, never stood upon her threshold and met Victor Heron there. "Why not wish at once that I had never been born?" she said, half tearful, half scornful of her tears. "One thing is as easy now as the other, and as useful, and not to have been born would have saved many idle hours and much heartache." CHAPTER XV. A MORNING CONFIDENCE.