_Miss Reed_: “Why?” _Miss Spaulding_, thoughtfully regarding a vase which she holds in her hand, after several times shifting it from a bracket to the corner of her piano and back: “I wish I could tell where you do look best!” _Miss Reed_, leaning forward wistfully, with her hands clasped and resting on her knees: “I wish you would tell me _why_ you don’t believe you’re the best friend I have in the world.” _Miss Spaulding_, finally placing the vase on the bracket: “Because you’ve said so too often.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, that’s no reason! I can prove to you that you are. Who else but you would have taken in a homeless and friendless creature like me, and let her stay bothering round in demoralizing idleness, while you were seriously teaching the young idea how to drub the piano?” _Miss Spaulding_: “Anybody who wanted a room-mate as much as I did, and could have found one willing to pay more than her share of the lodging.” _Miss Reed_, thoughtfully: “Do you think so, Henrietta?” _Miss Spaulding_: “I know so.” _Miss Reed_: “And you’re not afraid that you wrong yourself?” _Miss Spaulding_: “Not the least.” _Miss Reed_: “Well, be it so—as they say in novels. I will not contradict you; I will not say you are my _best_ friend; I will merely say that you are my _only_ friend. Come here, Henrietta. Draw up your chair, and put your little hand in mine.” _Miss Spaulding_, with severe distrust: “What do you want, Ethel Reed?” _Miss Reed_: “I want—I want—to talk it over with you.” _Miss Spaulding_, recoiling: “I knew it! Well, now, we’ve talked it over enough; we’ve talked it over till there’s nothing left of it.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, there’s everything left! It remains in all its original enormity. Perhaps we shall get some new light upon it.” She extends a pleading hand towards _Miss Spaulding_. “Come, Henrietta, my only friend, shake!—as the ‘good Indians’ say. Let your Ethel pour her hackneyed sorrows into your bosom. Such an uncomfortable image, it always seems, doesn’t it, pouring sorrows into bosoms! Come!” _Miss Spaulding_, decidedly: “No, I won’t! And you needn’t try wheedling any longer. I won’t sympathize with you on that basis at all.” _Miss Reed_: “What shall I try, then, if you won’t let me try wheedling?” _Miss Spaulding_, going to the piano and opening it: “Try courage; try self-respect.” _Miss Reed_: “Oh, dear! when I haven’t a morsel of either. Are you going to practise, you cruel maid?” _Miss Spaulding_: “Of course I am. It’s half-past four, and if I don’t do it now I sha’n’t be prepared to-morrow for Miss Robins: she takes this piece.” _Miss Reed_: “Well, well, perhaps it’s all for the best. If music be the food of—umph-ump!—you know what!—play on.” They both laugh, and _Miss Spaulding_ pushes back a little from the piano, and wheels toward her friend, letting one hand rest slightly on the keys. _Miss Spaulding_: “Ethel Reed, you’re the most ridiculous girl in the world.” _Miss Reed_: “Correct!”