"Dear Susy—I don't know why you're so unkind—and unjust," said Lydia, after a moment, in the tone of one wounded.
"How am I unkind? You're the practical one of us three. You run us and take care of us. We know we're stupids compared to you. But really mamma and I stand aghast at the way in which you manage your love affairs!"
"My love affairs!" cried Lydia, "but I haven't got any!"
"Do you mean to say that Lord Tatham is not in love with you?" said Susan severely—"that he wouldn't marry you to-morrow if you'd let him?"
Lydia flushed, but her look was neither resentful nor repentant.
"Why should we put it in that way?" she said, ardently. "Isn't it possible to look at men in some other light than as possible husbands? Haven't they got hearts and minds—don't they think and feel—just like us?"
"Oh, no, not like us," said Susan hastily—"never."
Lydia smiled.
"Well, enough like us, anyway. Do you ever think, Susy!" she seized her sister's wrist and looked her in the eyes—"that there are a million more women than men in this country? It is evident we can't all be married. Well, then, I withdraw from the competition! It's demoralizing to women; and it's worse for men. But I don't intend to confine myself to women friends."
"They bore you," said Susy sharply; "confess it at once!"