“You’ve walked so fast I could not keep up. You do not know, perhaps, how weak I am, and how little it takes to tire me. They say my heart is diseased, and an unusual excitement might kill me.” “No, oh no!” Anna answered with a shudder, as she thought of what might have been the result of her rashness, and then she smoothed the wet hair, which, dried by the warm sunbeams, coiled itself up in golden masses, which her fingers softly threaded. “I did not know it until that time in Venice when Arthur talked to me so good, trying to make me feel that it was not hard to die, even if I was so young and the world so full of beauty,” Lucy went on, her voice sounding very low, and her bright shoulder-knots of ribbon trembling with the rapid beating of her heart. “When he was talking to me I could be almost willing to die, but the moment he was gone the doubts and fears came back, and death was terrible again. I was always better with Arthur. Everybody is, and I think your seeing so much of him is one reason why you are so good.” “No, no, I am not good,” and Anna’s hands pressed hard upon the girlish head lying in her lap. “I am wicked beyond what you can guess. I led you this rough way when I might have chosen a smooth though longer road, and walked so fast on purpose to worry you.” “To worry _me_. Why should you wish to do that?” and lifting up her head, Lucy looked wonderingly at the conscience-stricken Anna, who could not confess to the jealousy, but who in all other respects answered truthfully: “I think an evil spirit possessed me for a time, and I wanted to show you that it was not so nice to visit the poor as you seemed to think, but I am sorry, oh so sorry, and you’ll forgive me, won’t you?” A loving kiss was pressed upon her lips and a warm cheek was laid against her own, as Lucy said, “Of course I’ll forgive you, though I do not quite understand why you should wish to discourage me or tease me either, when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard your voice, and saw you in the choir. You don’t dislike me, do you?” “No, oh no. I love you very dearly,” Anna replied, her tears falling like rain upon the slight form she hugged so passionately to her, and which she would willingly have borne in her arms the remainder of the way, as a kind of penance for her past misdeeds; but Lucy was much better, and so the two, between whom there was now a bond of love which nothing could sever, went on together to the low dismal house where the Widow Hobbs lived.