“Aggie, we’re i’ the wrang. We had no richt to speik aboot things ’at only twa kent, whan there was three walkin’ thegither.--Ye see, Miss Elsie, her an’ me was at the schuil thegither, an’ we happent to tak’ up wi’ the same kin’ o’ thing, partic’larly algebra an’ geometry, an’ can ill haud oor tongues frae them whan we forgather. The day, it’s been to the prejudice o’ oor mainners, an’ I beg ye to owerluik it.” “I didn’t think it was profitable conversation for the Sabbath day,” said Elsie, with a smile meant to be chastened, but which Aggie took for bitter, and laughed in her sleeve. A few minutes more and the two were again absorbed, this time with a point in conic sections, on which Aggie professed to require enlightenment, and again Elsie was left out. Nor did this occur either through returning forgetfulness on the part of Aggie, or the naturally strong undertow of the tide of science in her brain. Once more Elsie adopted the _neglected_ rôle, but being allowed to play it in reality, dropped farther and farther behind, until its earnest grew heavy on her soul, and she sat down by the roadside and wept--then rising in anger, turned back, and took another way to the village. Poor girl-heart! How many tears do not fancies doomed to pass cost those who give them but as it were a night’s lodging! And the tears are bitter enough, although neither the love, nor therefore the sorrow, may have had time to develop much individuality. One fairest soap-bubble, one sweetly devised universe vanishes with those tears; and it may be never another is blown with so many colours, and such enchanting changes! What is the bubble but air parted from the air, individualized by thinnest skin of slightly glutinous water! Does not swift comfort and ready substitution show first love rather, the passion between man and woman than between a man and a woman? How speedily is even a Romeo consoled to oblivion for the loss of a Rosaline by the gain of a Juliet! And yet I mourn over even such evanishment; mourn although I know that the bubble of paradise, swift revolving to annihilation, is never a wasted thing: its influence, its educating power on the human soul, which must at all risks be freed of its shell and taught to live, remains in that soul, to be, I trust, in riper worlds, an eternal joy. At the same time therefore I would not be too sad over such as Elsie, now seated by a little stream, in a solitary hollow, alone with her mortification--bathing her red eyes with her soaked handkerchief, that she might appear without danger of inquisition before the sister whom marriage had not made more tender, or happiness more sympathetic.