"Does it? No, no, Bee—just the other way. I always feel how terrifically full life is—absolutely brim-full! There's any amount, every day, of what one could do, and might do, and ought to do—and of what one doesn't do! Isn't that true?"
Then, with a change of tone—"Bee, do you ever look forward, and picture life in the future—think and dream of what may lie ahead!" Bee's imprisoned hand stirred, for did she not? Amy went on, unheeding the movement—"I do! I'm always and for ever dreaming of the time when you and I will live together; when we shall be just everything to each other. One knows that changes must come, as years pass on; and why shouldn't one think of the things that will lie beyond those changes? Do you remember my telling you last summer of this vision of mine?—Of the dear little home that is to be ours, and of how the days will fly, and of how I shall shelter and guard and pet my darling, and of how we shall want nothing and nobody except just our two selves! Think—how perfect it will be. You remember—don't you?"
Yes; Bee remembered, though, truth to tell, the said talk had made no very profound impression upon her mind. Amy had talked, and she had listened and had pleasantly assented, only to dismiss the subject later from her thoughts. Plainly, Amy had taken it much more seriously.
"When I'm vexed or worried, nothing comforts me like thinking about that sweet little future home of ours. Does it comfort you too?"
Bee hesitated, too truthful to say yes. "I don't know—" she murmured at length. "I haven't thought much about it."
"You haven't!"
"One can't look forward with any sort of certainty. Life is often so different—so unlike what one has fancied."
"That wasn't the way you took it last time."
"I'm older now."
"You're not twenty; and I'm over thirty."