'Yes; but theirs is mere surface admiration—yours goes deeper. Do you know, Miss Lambert, I was wondering all luncheon time why you always look so restful and contented?'
'Perhaps because I am so,' returned Mildred, smiling.
'Yes, but you have known trouble; your face says so plainly; there are lines that have no business to be there; in some things you are older than your age.'
'You are a keen observer, Miss Trelawny.'
'Do not answer me like that,' she returned, a little hurt; 'you are so earnest yourself that you ought to allow for earnestness in others. I knew directly I heard your voice that I should like you; does my frankness displease you?' turning on her abruptly.
'On the contrary, it pleases me!' replied Mildred, but she blushed a little under the scrutiny of this strange girl.
'You are undemonstrative, so am I to most people; but directly I saw your face and heard you speak I knew yours was a true nature, and I was anxious to win you for my friend; you do not know how sadly I want one,' she continued, her voice trembling a little. 'One cannot live without sympathy.'
'It is not meant that we should do so,' returned Mildred, softly.
'I believe mine to be an almost isolated case,' returned Ethel. 'No mother, no——' she checked herself, turned pale and hurried on, 'with only a childlike memory of what brother-love really is, and a faint-off remembrance of a little white wasted face resting on a pillow strewn with lilies. I was very young then, but I remember how I cried when they told me my baby-sister was an angel in heaven.'
'How old were you when your brothers died?' asked Mildred, gently. Ethel's animation had died away, and a look of deep sadness now crossed her face.