You could be a better, parson, lawyer or
doctor than nine out of ten, but they won't let us. They know we could
beat them into fits at anything but brute strength and wickedness, so
they have shut all those doors in us poor girls' faces."
"There; you see," said Lucy archly, "but two lines are open to our
honorable ambition, marriage and--water-colors. I think marriage the
more honorable of the two; above all, it is the more fashionable. Can
you blame me, then, if my ambition chooses the altar and not the
easel?"
"So that is what you have been bringing me to."
"You came of your own accord," was the sly retort. "Let me offer you
some luncheon."
"No, thank you; I could not eat a morsel just now."
Eve went away, her bright little face visibly cast down. It was not
Miss Fountain's words only, and that new trait of hard satire, which
she had so suddenly produced from her secret recesses. Her very tones
were cynical and worldly to Eve's delicate sense of hearing.
"Poor, poor David!" she thought, and when she got to the door of the
room she sighed; and as she went home she said more than once to
herself, "No more heart than a marble statue. Oh, how true our first
thought is! I come back to mine--"
Lucy (sola). _"Then_ what right had she to come here and
try to turn me inside out?"
CHAPTER X.
As the hour of Lucy's departure drew near, Mr. Fountain became anxious
to see her betrothed to his friend, for fear of accidents. "You had
better propose to her in form, or authorize me to do so, before she
goes to that Mrs.
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