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‘Ah yes,’ said the child eagerly, ‘I must do that.’
‘But if I speak to you now about your getting married it’s
not for your own sake, it’s for mine,’ Isabel went on. ‘If I try
to learn from you what you expect, what you desire, it’s only
that I may act accordingly.’
Pansy stared, and then very quickly, ‘Will you do every-
thing I want?’ she asked.
‘Before I say yes I must know what such things are.’
Pansy presently told her that the only thing she wanted
in life was to marry Mr. Rosier. He had asked her and she
had told him she would do so if her papa would allow it.
Now her papa wouldn’t allow it.
‘Very well then, it’s impossible,’ Isabel pronounced.
‘Yes, it’s impossible,’ said Pansy without a sigh and with
the same extreme attention in her clear little face.
‘You must think of something else then,’ Isabel went on;
but Pansy, sighing at this, told her that she had attempted
that feat without the least success.
‘You think of those who think of you,’ she said with a
faint smile. ‘I know Mr. Rosier thinks of me.’
‘He ought not to,’ said Isabel loftily. ‘Your father has ex-
pressly requested he shouldn’t.’
‘He can’t help it, because he knows I think of him.’
‘You shouldn’t think of him. There’s some excuse for
him, perhaps; but there’s none for you.’
‘I wish you would try to find one,’ the girl exclaimed as if
she were praying to the Madonna.
‘I should be very sorry to attempt it,’ said the Madon-
na with unusual frigidity. ‘If you knew some one else was

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