"I really think," pursued Eva, "that your friendship has been everything to Jim. We all notice how much he has improved."
"It's only that we know him better," said Alice. "Jim always was a nice fellow; but it takes a very intimate acquaintance to get at the real earnest nature there is under all his nonsense. But after all, Eva, I'm a little afraid of trouble in that friendship."
A MIDNIGHT CAUCUS.
"'There, now, he's off,' said Eva, ... then, leaning back, she began taking out hair-pins and shaking down curls and untying ribbons as a preface to a wholly free conversation."—p. 400.
"Trouble—how?" said Eva, with the most innocent air in the world, as if she did not feel perfectly sure of what was coming next.
"Well, I do think, and I always have said, that an intimate friendship between a lady and a gentleman is just the best thing for both parties."
"Well, isn't it?" said Eva.
"Well, yes. But the difficulty is, it won't stay. It will get to be something more than you want, and that makes a trouble. Now, did you notice Jim's manner to me to-night?"
"Well, I thought I saw something rather suspicious," said Eva, demurely; "but then you always have been so sure that there was nothing, and was to be nothing, in that quarter."