"I should not dare presume."
"Why not?"
"Such familiarity! and with one of your rank!"
"Of my age, you mean! A friend of twenty-eight years alarms one of sixteen, for you are sixteen, I believe."
"Seventeen," replied Esther with comical dignity.
"Well, I love you, and I want you to love me. Friendship is the true sentiment which unites women, the only one which relieves their delicacy of the fear of wounds, their devotion of treason. Oh, if I could but spare you some of the griefs of my life!"
"You have suffered?"
"Frightfully!" said Bella in a flippant tone which belied the tragic significance of the word. Then she continued:—
"Men are all wretches, but the worst one among them all is perhaps Lord Mowbray."
"What has he done?"