"You may come to that at last," replied her friend, with a moonlight smile, which passed almost immediately away, "really you do not know what a pleasure the morning papers give me—they make me remember that I am a denizen of the world, and besides, a daughter of England, and then I forget how lonely I am as an individual."
"But why lonely," returned Lucy, "the slightest effort on your part would surround you with friends, and you might have a host of acquaintances instead of my poor self, whom alone you admit, and I enjoy that privilege, merely from accident."
"You do not quite know me yet," said Miss Foster, "such society is no longer tolerable. And I might never have known even you, had not your horse thrown you at our very door, and forced me to open it. There was, indeed, something so pleasing in being able to nurse you for a few days, that I became insensibly attached to you. But such accidents seldom occur, and I care not to go through the common ordeal of acquiring acquaintances."
"Well," said Lucy, "when I am inclined to turn anchorite, Millie, you must let me in, and I will come and live with you; but I am rather of opinion that the world is a mirror which reflects back our smiles and our frowns."
"Is that sentiment your own?" enquired her companion, quickly.
"No—second hand from a delightful partner that I met last night. Such a very nice man—quite beyond my poor powers of description; everything he said was so clever, and so new, it seemed as if he had read more of the human heart than any one I ever met. He talked to me nearly all the evening."
"Imprudent girl!" exclaimed Miss Foster.
"Oh, if you take everything I say so seriously," said Lucy, poutingly, "I will not tell you anything."
"What kind of looking man was he?" said Miss Foster, without heeding her remark.
"He must be thirty, at least," said Lucy—"with light brown hair, deep blue eyes, rather tall, and very nice looking—not quite so handsome as Captain Clair; but then his talking was the fascinating part."