Nevertheless, the affection was there.

During several months she considered Barbara more than she had ever considered any one in her life before.

At that first tea party she was aware, perhaps, that Barbara's proffered devotion was for complete and absolute self-sacrifice, something that her vanity would not often find to feed it.

There was, too, no question of comparison between them.
Even when Barbara grew to be nine she would be a poor thing beside the lusty self-confidence of Mary Adams--and this was quite as it should be.
All that Barbara wanted was some one upon whom she might pour her devotion, and one of the things that Mary wanted was some one who would spend it upon her.

But there stirred, nevertheless, some breath of emotion across that stagnant little pool, Mary's heart.