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Show 18o Sbt'• 'ttoo$1bl IS!lll 'Rose anll $tl1'er money for clothes," the girl went on, half to herself. "Don't bother her with it," suggested the other, kindly. "Let me do it. Rose and I will enjoy making pretty things for a bride." "I'm afraid Cousin Rose wouldn't enjoy it," Isabel replied, with an unpleasant laugh. "Do you know," she added, confidentially, "I 've always thought Cousin Rose liked Allison- well, a good deal." "She does," returned Madame, meeting the girl's eyes clearly, "and so do !. When you're older, Isabel, you 'II learn to distinguish between a mere friendly interest and the grand passion." "She's too old, I know," Isabel continued, with the brutality of confident youth, "but sometimes older women do fall in love with young men." "Why shouldn't they?" queried Madame, lightly, "as long as older men choose to fall in love with young women? As far as that goes, it would be no worse for Allison to marry Rose than it is for him to marry you." "But," objected Isabel, "when he is sixty, she will be seventy, and he wouldn't care for her." "And," returned Madame, rather sharply, "when he is forty, you will be only thirty and you may not care for him. There are always two sides to everything," she added, after a 'tllllbtte Glo1'es , 8• pause, "and when we get so civilised that all Jk,..1 ... women may be self-supporting if they choose, w:bWdt we may see a little advice to husbands on the way of keeping a wife's love, instead of the flood of nonsense that disf1gures the periodicals now." "They all say that woman makes the home," Isabel suggested, idly. "But not alone. No woman can make a home alone. It takes two pairs of hands to make a home--one strong and the other tender, and two true hearts." "I hope it won't take too long to make my clothes," answered Isabel, irrelevantly. "He says I must be ready by September." "Then we must begin immediately. Write out everything you think of, and afterward we 'II go over the list together. Come into the library and begin now. There's no time like the present." "Do you think," Isabel inquired as she seated herself at the library table, "that I will have many presents? 1 ' "Probably," answered Madame, briefly. "I 'II come back when you've finished your list." She went up-stairs and knocked gently at the door of Rose's room, feeling very much as she did the day she went to Colonel Kent to tell him that the little mother of his new-born son was dead. Rose herself opened the door, somewhat surprised. |