"All that alone would be pleasant enough, Trichy. But what if there should be circumstances which should still make us enemies; should make your friends and my friends—friend, I should say, for I have only one—should make them opposed to each other?"
"Circumstances! What circumstances?"
"You are going to be married, Trichy, to the man you love; are you not?"
"Indeed, I am!"
"And it is not pleasant? is it not a happy feeling?"
"Pleasant! happy! yes, very pleasant; very happy. But, Mary, I am not at all in such a hurry as he is," said Beatrice, naturally thinking of her own little affairs.
"And, suppose I should wish to be married to the man that I love?" Mary said this slowly and gravely, and as she spoke she looked her friend full in the face.
Beatrice was somewhat astonished, and for the moment hardly understood. "I am sure I hope you will, some day."
"No, Trichy; no, you hope the other way. I love your brother; I love Frank Gresham; I love him quite as well, quite as warmly, as you love Caleb Oriel."
"Do you?" said Beatrice, staring with all her eyes, and giving one long sigh, as this new subject for sorrow was so distinctly put before her.