"Might not the telling also have the same effect as if the cloud were dissipated altogether?"
She looked at him quickly and said, "How apt your answer is! Yes, it might if you would be sensible. I do not know you so very well yet. Are you not a little ready to take offence?"
"You do not look as if about to say anything I should resent very deeply. But I promise that the cloud shall vanish."
"I am not so sure about that. The cloud represents my thought; and yet I hope it may eventually vanish utterly. The thought occurred to me after the pleasant hours of this afternoon what congenial friends we might be."
"And that caused you to sigh so deeply?"
"I laid emphasis on the word might."
"And why should you, Miss Annie? Why need you?" he asked, eagerly.
"You have shown a great deal of tact and consideration this afternoon, Mr. Gregory, in choosing topics on which we could agree, or about which it is as nice to differ a little. I wish it were the same in regard to those things that make up one's life, as it were;" and she looked at him closely to see how he would take this.
After a moment he said, a little bitterly, "In order to be your friend, must one look at everything through the same colored glass that you employ?"
"Oh, no," she replied, earnestly; "it is not fair to say that. But you seem almost hostile to all that I love best and think most of, and my sigh was rather an earnest and oft-recurring wish that it were otherwise."