"You are wise in your generation, Pauline!" says Addie, with a contemptuous smile.
"Wiser than you in yours, Addie," she retorts angrily. "I think it shows a churlish and ill-bred—yes, ill-bred spirit to refuse the hand of good-fellowship when it is so frankly offered. The Arkwrights and the Lefroys have been at feud for the last generation; for all we know, we may be the parties in fault, and yet they are the first to make an advance which you—you—"
"That is enough, Pauline," says her sister coldly; "we need not discuss the matter further. You evidently mean to accept these people's tardy hospitality, whether I wish it or not; so go—go to this ball and enjoy it, if you can. I dare say your enjoyment won't be much marred by the fact that I am both hurt and deeply disappointed by your conduct."
"It takes very little to hurt and disappoint you nowadays, Addie."
"I don't know that, Pauline," she says wearily. "It seems to me that I have food daily for disappointment, pain, and remorse."
"In other words, Addie, you mean that you are tired of us, tired of your brothers and sisters, who once were all to you! You would like to be rid of us!" says Pauline bitterly.
"Tired of you?" she echoes drearily. "I don't know; I think I'm most tired of myself, of my life, of my fate, of everything."
Pauline is moved, deeply moved for the moment, by the blank hopeless sorrow of the young face. She opens her arms, draws her sister's head on her bosom, and whispers, half crying herself—
"What is it—what is it, Addie, my darling? Are you very unhappy? If—if—you like we will go away all of us somewhere—somewhere where he shall never find you again. Tell me, sister darling—is he unkind to you?"
"Oh, no, no," she answers back, in a torrent of tears, her hot face buried in her sister's neck—"not that—not that! I can not tell you—you would not understand; it is only sometimes I feel so miserable that I should like to die. You must make allowance for me, Polly love, when I'm like that. You must try to bear with my peevishness, my ill-temper, my nastiness, for I can not help it, dear—indeed I can not. I feel so sore, so miserable, so nerveless, that I long to make every one as wretched as myself. I don't know what comes over me, what is the matter with me. I have no cause, no reason—oh, no, no! He is good to me, Polly, good—the best husband any woman could have; never believe anything but that—never! Look into my eyes if you doubt my word. You will read the truth there."