said before, on the woman and on the man."

"An 'experiment' is good!" said Arnold, rather savagely. "I see you won't
say anything you can't swear to."

"I really do not see that I am called upon to say anything on the subject
at all!" said the girl, rising and looking at him across the brook with
indignant eyes and a hot glow on her cheek.

He did not appear to notice her annoyance.

"You are, because you know something about it, and most women don't: your
testimony is worth something. How long have you been here,--a year? I
wonder how it seems to a woman to live in a place like this a year! I hate
it all, you know,--I've seen so much of it. But is there really any beauty
here? I suppose beauty, and all that sort of thing, is partly within us,
isn't it?--at least, that's what the goody little poems tell us."

"I think it is very beautiful here," said Miss Frances, softening, as he
laid aside his strained manner, and spoke more quietly. "It is the kind
of place a happy woman might be very happy in; but if she were
sad--or--disappointed"--

"Well?" said Arnold, pulling at his mustache, and fixing a rather gloomy
gaze upon her.

"She would die of it! I really do not think there would be any hope for her
in a place like this."

"But if she were happy, as you say," persisted the young man, "don't