at all; and others you never see without thinking how very nice they must
have looked when they wore socks and pink sashes."

Em remained silent; then she said with a little dignity, "When you know him
you will love him as I do. When I compare other people with him, they seem
so weak and little. Our hearts are so cold, our loves are mixed up with so
many other things. But he--no one is worthy of his love. I am not. It is
so great and pure."

"You need not make yourself unhappy on that point--your poor return for his
love, my dear," said Lyndall. "A man's love is a fire of olive-wood. It
leaps higher every moment; it roars, it blazes, it shoots out red flames;
it threatens to wrap you round and devour you--you who stand by like an
icicle in the glow of its fierce warmth. You are self-reproached at your
own chilliness and want of reciprocity. The next day, when you go to warm
your hands a little, you find a few ashes! 'Tis a long love and cool
against a short love and hot; men, at all events, have nothing to complain
of."

"You speak so because you do not know men," said Em, instantly assuming the
dignity of superior knowledge so universally affected by affianced and
married women in discussing man's nature with their uncontracted sisters.

"You will know them too some day, and then you will think differently,"
said Em, with the condescending magnanimity which superior knowledge can
always afford to show to ignorance.

Lyndall's little lip quivered in a manner indicative of intense amusement.
She twirled a massive ring upon her forefinger--a ring more suitable for
the hand of a man, and noticeable in design--a diamond cross let into gold,