Why, don't you see? You're just like my brother. Oh, do please let us
forget all this, and let's be just as we used to be."

"We cannot," he said gently. "But I won't make you unhappy; I won't speak
if you tell me to be silent."

"Indeed, I do tell you to be silent," she said, in a relieved tone.
"I--could not, Giff. So we'll just forget it. Promise me you will forget
it?"

He shook his head, with a slow smile. "You must forget it, if it will
make you any happier; but you cannot ask me to forget. I am happier to
remember. I shall always love you, Lois."

"But you mustn't!" she cried again. "Why can't we have just the old
friendship? Indeed--indeed, it never could be anything else; and," with a
sudden break of tenderness in her voice, "I--I really am so fond of you,
Giff!"

Here the young man smiled a little bitterly. Friendship separated them as
inexorably as though it had been hate!

"And," the girl went on, gaining confidence as she spoke, for argument
cleared the air of sentiment, in which she felt as awkward as she was
unkind, "and you know there are a good many things you don't like in me;
you think I have lots of faults,--you know you do."

"I suppose I do, in a way," he acknowledged; "but if I didn't love you so
much, Lois, I would not notice them."