ugly girls, and they have some money. How dreadfully lonely they must be
living there by themselves!'

'I think they are far happier as they are,' said Cecilia, and her brown
eyes set in liquid blue looked strangely at Alice as she helped her over
the low wall. The girls walked in silence through the stillness of the
silver firs, their thoughts as sharp as the needles that scratched the
pale sky.

'It may seem odd of me to say so--of course I would not say this to
anyone but you--but I assure you, even if I were as tall as you are,
dear, nothing would induce me to marry. I never took the slightest
pleasure in any man's conversation. Do you? But I know you do,' she
said, breaking off suddenly--'I know you like men; I feel you do. Don't
you?'

'Well, since you put it so plainly, I confess I should like to know nice
men. I don't care for those I have met hitherto, particularly those I
saw at dinner the other night; but I believe there are nice men in the
world.'

'Oh! no there aren't.'

'Well, Cecilia, I don't see how you can speak so positively as that; you
have seen, as yet, very little of the world.'

'Ah, yes, but I know it; I can guess it all, I know it instinctively,
and I hate it.'

'There is nothing else, so we must make the best of it.'