only to Johanna. She read over the two lines, wondered where she
should keep them now that Johanna might not notice them; and then
recoiled, as if the secret were a wrong to that dear sister who loved
her so well.

"But nothing makes me love her less; nothing ever could. She thinks
me quite happy, as I am; and yet--oh, if I did not miss him so!"

And the aching, aching want which sometimes came over began again.
Let us not blame her. God made all our human needs. God made love.
Not merely affection but actual love--the necessity to seek and find
out some other being, not another but the complement of one's
self--the "other half," who brings rest and strength for weakness,
sympathy in aspiration, and tenderness for tenderness, as no other
person ever can. Perhaps, even in marriage, this love is seldom
found, and it is possible in all lives to do without it. Johanna had
done so. But then she had been young, and was now growing old; and
Hilary was only twenty, with a long life before her. Poor child, let
us not blame her!

She was not in the least sentimental, her natural disposition
inclining her to be more than cheerful, actually gay. She soon
recovered herself, and when, a short time after, she stood, scissors
in hand, demonstrating how very easy it was to make something out of
nothing, her sisters never suspected how very near tears had lately
been to those bright eyes, which were always the sunshine of the
house.

"You are giving yourself a world of trouble," said Selina. "If I were
you, I would just make over the dress to Elizabeth, and let her do