same time you're the most beautiful person here."

"How lovely of you, even if you don't mean it," she sighed. "If girls
could have more of those things said to them, they would be better, don't
you think? Or at least feel better."

Westover laughed. "We might organize a society--they have them for nearly
everything now--for saying pleasant things to young ladies with a view to
the moral effect."

"Oh, do I."

"But it ought to be done conscientiously, and you couldn't go round
telling every one that she was the most beautiful girl in the room."

"Why not? She'd believe it!"

"Yes; but the effect on the members of the society?"

"Oh yes; that! But you could vary it so as to save your conscience. You
could say, 'How divinely you're looking!' or 'How angelic!' or 'You're
the very poetry of motion,' or 'You are grace itself,' or 'Your gown is a
perfect dream, or any little commonplace, and every one would take it for
praise of her personal appearance, and feel herself a great beauty, just
as I do now, though I know very well that I'm all out of drawing, and
just chicqued together."

"I couldn't allow any one but you to say that, Miss Bessie; and I only
let it pass because you say it so well."