Something in her look checked Manella's natural impulse to confide
in one of her own sex.

"No, I am not!"--she answered coldly--"I have said too much."

Morgana smiled, and stretching out her small white hand, adorned
with its sparkling rings, laid it caressingly on the girl's brown
wrist.

"You are a dear!"--she murmured, lazily--"Just a dear! A big,
beautiful creature with a heart! That's the trouble--your heart!
You've found a man living selfishly alone, scribbling what he
perhaps thinks are the most wonderful things ever put on paper, when
they are very likely nothing but rubbish, and it enters into your
head that he wants mothering and loving! He doesn't want anything of
the sort! And YOU want to love and mother him! Oh heavens!--have you
ever thought what loving and mothering mean?"

Manella drew a quick soft breath.

"All the world, surely!" she answered, with emotion--"To love!--to
possess the one we love, body and soul!--and to mother a life born
of such love!--THAT must be heaven!"

The smile flitted away from Morgana's lips, and her expression
became almost sorrowful.

"You are like a trusting animal!" she said--"An animal all innocent
of guns and steel-traps! You poor girl! I should like you to come