"I have nothing to say against it, if she has courage to brave public opinion."
"I did not think you reckoned me such a coward."
"That shows how little we know what our intimate friends think of us; if there was a general laying bare of hearts, methinks there would be lively times for a while."
I stood thinking his words over very seriously, and then turning to him said, gravely:—
"I would be willing for nearly all my friends to see my thoughts respecting them."
"There would be some exceptions, then. You said nearly all, remember. The few might be the ones most anxious to know, and upon whom the restriction would bear most heavily."
"They might not care what I thought," I said with a hot flush; something in his look making me tremble.
"If we are to be in time for church we should leave very shortly," he said, looking at his watch.
"And we are really going to Beech Street Church this evening?"
"Yes, really," he said, with that genial smile I was beginning to regard like a caress.