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62 interest; they watched them from day to day; they noticed their changing color; they had their ideas about who was getting better and who was getting worse. They did little, however, in the way of making acquaintances,—partly because consumptive people are no great talkers, and partly because this was also Diana's disposition. She said to her friend that they had not come to Europe to pay morning-calls; they had left their best bonnets and card-cases behind them. At the bottom of her reserve was the apprehension that she should be "admired;" which was not fatuity, but simply an inference based upon uncomfortable experience. She had seen in Europe, for the first time, certain horrid men, polished adventurers, with offensive looks and mercenary thoughts; and she had a wholesome fear that one of these gentlemen might approach her through some accidental breach in her reserve. Agatha Gosling, who had neither in reminiscence nor in prospect the same reasons for being on the defensive, would have been glad to extend the circle of her intimacy, and would even have consented to put on a best bonnet for the purpose. But she had to content herself with an occasional murmur of small talk, on a bench before the sea, with two or three English ladies of the botanizing class; jovial little spinsters who wore stout boots, gauntlets, and "uglies," and in pursuit