Euthymia was always patient with her imaginative friend.  She listened to her eloquent discourse, but she could not help blushing, used as she was to Lurida’s audacities.  “The Terror’s” brain had run away with a large share of the blood which ought to have gone to the nourishment of her general system.  She could not help admiring, almost worshipping, a companion whose being was rich in the womanly developments with which nature had so economically endowed herself.  An impoverished organization carries with it certain neutral qualities which make its subject appear, in the presence of complete manhood and womanhood, like a deaf-mute among speaking persons.  The deep blush which crimsoned Euthymia’s cheek at Lurida’s suggestion was in a strange contrast to her own undisturbed expression.  There was a range of sensibilities of which Lurida knew far less than she did of those many and difficult studies which had absorbed her vital forces.  She was startled to see what an effect her proposal had produced, for Euthymia was not only blushing, but there was a flame in her eyes which she had hardly ever seen before.

“Is this only your own suggestion?” Euthymia said, “or has some one been putting the idea into your head?” The truth was that she had happened to meet the Interviewer at the Library, one day, and she was offended by the long, searching stare with which that individual had honored her.  It occurred to her that he, or some such visitor to the place, might have spoken of her to Lurida, or to some other person who had repeated what was said to Lurida, as a good subject for the art of the sculptor, and she felt all her maiden sensibilities offended by the proposition.  Lurida could not understand her excitement, but she was startled by it.  Natures which are complementary of each other are liable to these accidental collisions of feeling.  They get along very well together, none the worse for their differences, until all at once the tender spot of one or the other is carelessly handled in utter unconsciousness on the part of the aggressor, and the exclamation, the outcry, or the explosion explains the situation altogether too emphatically.  Such scenes did not frequently occur between the two friends, and this little flurry was soon over; but it served to warn Lurida that Miss Euthymia Tower was not of that class of self-conscious beauties who would be ready to dispute the empire of the Venus of Milo on her own ground, in defences as scanty and insufficient as those of the marble divinity.

Euthymia had had admirers enough, at a distance, while at school, and in the long vacations, near enough to find out that she was anything but easy to make love to.  She fairly frightened more than one rash youth who was disposed to be too sentimental in her company.  They overdid flattery, which she was used to and tolerated, but which cheapened the admirer in her estimation, and now and then betrayed her into an expression which made him aware of the fact, and