“Oh! I like to conquer difficulties,” he exclaimed. “The greater the obstacles, the greater the triumph.”
Perhaps he meant nothing more than met the ear, but Mittie’s omnipotent self-love felt wounded. She had been too easy a conquest, whose value was already beginning to lessen.
“Miss Thusa and Helen are such especial friends,” she added, without seeming to have heard his remark, “that I should think their first meeting had better be private. I suspect Miss Thusa has manufactured a new set of ghost stories for Helen’s peculiar benefit.”
“Are you a believer in ghosts?” asked Clinton of Helen. “If so, I envy you.”
“Envy me!”
“Yes! There is such a pleasure in credulity. I sigh now over the vanished illusions of my boyhood.”
“I once believed in ghosts,” replied Helen, “and even now, in solitude and darkness, the memories of childhood come back to me so powerfully, they are appalling. Miss Thusa might tell me a thousand stories now, without inspiring belief, while those told me in childhood can never be forgotten, or their impressions effaced.”
“Yet you like Miss Thusa, and seem to remember her with affection.”
“She was so kind to me that I could not help loving her—and she seemed so lonely, with so few to love her, it seemed cruel to shut up the heart against her.”
“One may be incredulous without being cruel, I should think,” said Mittie, with asperity. She felt the reproach, and could not believe it accidental. Poor Mittie! how much she suffered.