fast—as if something were withering between her hands.
The man who is leaning with one hand upon her chair is beginning to understand that the situation is graver than he thought. He has done all he can to get the quarrel, so trivial in its origin, adjusted and forgotten; he has talked reason, he has tried playfulness; he has besought forgiveness, and humbled himself—perhaps more than he intended—but all in vain. Nothing avails to arouse her out of the listless mood into which she has sunk.
Thus it is with an expression of anxiety that he bends down towards her: "But you know that at heart we love each other so much."
"Then why do we quarrel so easily, and why do we speak so bitterly and unkindly to each other?"
"Why, my dear! the whole thing was the merest trifle from the first."
"That's just it! Do you remember what we said to each other? How we vied with each other in trying to find the word we knew would be most wounding? Oh, to think that we used our knowledge of each other's heart to find out the tenderest points, where an unkind word could strike home. And this we call love!"
"My dear, don't take it so solemnly," he answered, trying a lighter tone. "People may be ever so fond of each other, and yet disagree a little at times; it can't be otherwise."
"Yes, yes!" she cried, "there must be a love
