Why should she die any more than me? Why should she be more pitied than I was? I had lost as much, more than she had. She had known him but a short time, not two years; but he had been mine all my life. I turned my back upon Ellen’s appeal, and she went away crying, shaking her head and saying I was unkind, I was without feeling. Oh, was I without feeling? How my head ached, how my heart swelled, how the sobs rose into my throat; I should have been glad could I have felt that it was likely I should die. “Will you go down to tea, Miss Mary,” Ellen said, coming back as the night began to fall. I was weary, weary of sitting and crying by myself; any change looked as if it must be better. I was cold and faint and miserable; and then there was in my mind a sort of curiosity to see how she looked, and if she would say anything--even to know what were to be the relations between us now. I went down accordingly, down to the dark little parlour which, during all papa’s illness, I had lived in alone. She was there, scarcely visible in the dark, crouching over a little fire which Ellen had lighted. It was very well-meant on Ellen’s part, but the wood was damp, and the coals black, and I think it made the place look almost more wretched. _She_ sat holding out her thin hands to it. The tea was on the table, and after I went in Ellen brought the candles. We did not say anything to each other. After a while she gave me some tea and I took it. She seemed to try to speak two or three times. I waited for her to begin. I would not say a word; and we had been thus for a long time mournfully seated together before she at last broke the silence. “Mary,” she said, and then paused. I suppose it was because I was younger than she that I had more command of myself, and felt able to observe every little movement she made and every tone. I was so curious about her--anxious, I could not tell why, as to what she would do and say. “Mary,” she repeated, “we have never been very good friends, you and I; I don’t know why this has been. I have not wished it--but we have not been very good friends.” “No.” “No; that is all you say? Could we not do any better now? When I came here first, I did not think I was doing you any wrong. I did not mean it as a wrong to you. Now we are two left alone in the world. I have no one, and you have no one. Could we not do any better! Mary, I think it would please him, perhaps, if we tried to be friends.” My heart was quite full. I could have thrown myself upon her, and kissed her. I could have killed her. I did not know what to do. “We have never been enemies,” I said. “No. But friends--that is different. There never were two so lonely. If we stayed together we might get to be fond of each other, Mary; we might keep together out of the cold world. Two together are stronger than one alone. You don’t know how cold the world is, you are so young. If we were to keep together we might stay--at home.”