"Never?"
"Oh, sometimes—when people do odd things. Not often. Why should one be always laughing?" asked Jean, with girlish solemnity. "I don't think life is so very funny. It is worse than funny. There are so many things that one can't understand."
"What things?" Jem moved to a fallen log, and sat down, motioning Jean to do the same.
"A great many. There are no end of puzzles."
"Tell me one of them."
Jean considered, and came out abruptly with—
"I never do see how Evelyn could marry General Villiers."
"Hardly needful for another person to see, if she cared for him enough."
"No—but—" There was a singular echo of Jem's "if" in Jean's expressive face.
"And we have not to settle that point."