“I would understand if he would treat me as if I were Nathan instead of Nan; what grand, good friends we could be!”
“I am glad that you can see that it has failed. How do you detect the failure?”
“I have eyes. I know. His mother does not understand either. I think that I shall begin to be more—”
“Maidenly?”
Nan colored. “Was I unmaidenly? I have resolved never to ask him to take me anywhere again; I have made him no end of pretty things, I will do it no more. I would not like to have him lose his respect for me.”
“It usually costs something to try an experiment; I am glad that yours has cost you no more.”
“So am I, heartily glad. My next shall be of a different nature. Did you never try an experiment?”
“Not of that kind; I tried an experiment once of believing every thing that somebody said, and acting upon it, as if it meant what it would have meant to me.”
“And you came to grief?”
“I thought so, at first. Life is a long story, isn’t it?”