Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/258

248 "Well, to give you my candid opinion, I think there is no comparison between them. But you mustn't be offended, Helen, for you know I always speak my mind; and you may speak your's too; I shan't care."

"I am not offended, love; and my opinion is that if there be a comparison made between the two, the difference, for the most part, is certainly in Hattersley's favour."

Milicent's own heart told her how much it cost me to make this acknowledgment; and, with a childlike impulse, she expressed her sympathy by suddenly kissing my cheek, without a word of reply, and then turning quickly away caught up her baby, and hid her face in its frock. How odd it is that we so often weep for each other's distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own! Her heart had been full enough of her own sorrows, but it overflowed at the idea of mine;—and I too, shed tears at the sight of her sympathetic emotion, though I had not wept for myself for many a week.