Now she is old--and you are friends.' 'Friends, yes,' Alvan replied, and praised the girl, as of course she deserved to be praised for her open mind.
'We are friends!' he said, dropping a deep-chested breath.

The title this girl scornfully supplied was balm to the vanity she had stung, and his burnt skin was too eager for a covering of any sort to examine the mood of the giver.

She had positively humbled him so far as with a single word to relieve him; for he had seen bristling chapters in her look at the photograph.

Yet for all the natural sensitiveness of the man's vanity, he did not seek to bury the subject at the cost of a misconception injurious in the slightest degree to the sentiments he entertained toward the older lady as well as the younger.

'Friends! you are right; good friends; only you should know that it is just a little--a trifle different.