“Yes, pretty often,” her friend assented. “But it’s always a new one, and nobody ever does anything about the old one, so why should you care? You’ll write one of these three boys a little weepy note, and you’ll have a little weepy scene with another, and that’ll leave only the one you like the best, and——” “But I don’t,” Lily interrupted, piteously. “I don’t absolutely _know_ I like him as much as I thought I did, either.” “What!” Ada cried. “Not even _him_?” “How can anybody ever be absolutely certain? I mean certain enough to get married. You know it’s a thing you’ve got to look at pretty seriously, Ada—getting actually _married_.” But for the moment Ada did not seem to be sympathetic;—she was staring wide-eyed at her friend. “So you’re going to wriggle out of it with all three of them.” “But maybe I can’t,” Lily moaned. “Suppose they insisted? Suppose they just wouldn’t _let_ me?” “Has there ever been anything anybody wouldn’t let you do?” Lily moaned again. “You mean I’m spoiled. You mean people let me make ’em miserable. Oh, it’s true, Ada! I do wish I could be more like you.” “Like me?” Ada laughed shortly. “You wouldn’t for the world.” “Yes, I would.” Lily took her friend’s hand in her own. “I’d give anything in the world to be like you. You don’t _know_ what a trouble I am to my mother and father! They’re always in some kind of stew or other over me, and I can’t help it, because I’m always getting myself into such fearful messes. You never trouble _your_ family; you’re always a comfort to ’em. You aren’t romantic and imaginative and sentimental and fly-off-the-handle, the way I am. You’re steady and reliable, and people always know exactly where to find you.” But upon this, Ada looked puzzled. “Is that so?” she asked, gravely. “Is that how I seem to you, Lily?” “To me? Good heavens! Don’t you know that’s the way everybody thinks of you? Everybody knows you’re dependable;—you’re what they call ‘so satisfactory,’ Ada. Your family and everybody else know you’ll never do anything reckless or susceptible or dreamy. Nobody on earth knows what _I’ll_ do, because I don’t myself. Just _look_ at the difference between us!” With that, as if the bodily contrast of the two expressed the contrast in character she had in mind, Lily extended her arms sidewise from her in an emotional gesture inviting an inspection of herself foredoomed to be damning; then pointed dramatically at Ada. “Just look at you and then look at me,” she cried. “See what a _terrible_ difference it is!”