"I should think not," returned Julia, musing; "I never had a sister; but it appears to me that the very familiarity of sisters would be destructive to friendship."
"Why I thought it was the confidence—the familiarity—the secrets—which form the very essence of friendship." cried Katherine; "at least so I have always heard."
"True," said Julia, eagerly, "you speak true—the confidence and the secrets—but not the—the—I am not sure that I express myself well—but the intimate knowledge that one has of one's own sister—that I should think would be destructive to the delicacy of friendship."
"Julia means that a prophet has never honour in his own country," cried Charles with a laugh—"a somewhat doubtful compliment to your sex, ladies, under her application of it."
"But what becomes of your innate evidence of worth in friendship," asked Miss Emmerson; "I thought that was the most infallible of all kinds of testimony: surely that must bring you intimately acquainted with each other's secret foibles too."
"Oh! no—that is a species of sentimental knowledge," returned Julia; "it only dwells on the loftier parts of the character, and never descends to the minute knowledge which makes us suffer so much in each other's estimation: it leaves all these to be filled by the—by the—by the—what shall I call it?"
"Imagination," said Katherine, dryly.
"Well, by the imagination then: but it is an imagination that is purified by sentiment, and"—
"Already rendered partial by the innate evidence of worth," interrupted Charles.
Julia had lost herself in the mazes of her own ideas, and changed the subject under a secret suspicion that her companions were amusing themselves at her expense; she, therefore, proceeded directly to urge the request of Anna Miller.