"You know well enough what I mean, dear. I could live without them, and their opinions."
"What a delicately implied compliment. You could live without me, too, if you only thought so."
"But if I do not think so, it comes to the same thing in the end. We are not happy unless we think we are."
"I don't know whether happiness is produced by asking ourselves continually if we have reached that state. It seems to me the less concern we give ourselves regarding our own welfare, the happier we are in reality. I don't instigate improvidence, however. After all, happiness may not be the best for us," she added, virtuously. I wonder if she would have been willing to resign her present contentment.
"Well, surely you would prefer for me to have joy if possible, and you certainly know wherein my happiness consists."
"Oh, Ralph," said Adelina, with a suspicious moisture about the eyes, "can you ever forgive me for the horrid thoughts I had about you?"
"On one condition," he responded. "I only wonder now, dear, how you could have had so much patience with an alleged lunatic."
"Don't, please, Ralph." Seeing that she was really troubled, he hastened to say, "Dearest, it is all right now; you were not at fault."
"I'll never again, as long as I live, judge any one or anything by appearances."
"I, too, have learned a lesson, for was I not misjudging you when you were doing all in your power to save my feelings at the expense of your own?"