It is perhaps making too much of it to be so disappointed. Certainly baby must be taken care of, and I have promised to take care of her. I fear that it will be a good while before I see Europe again. I am sorry for Cousin Mehitable, but she has never any difficulty in finding friends to travel with. It is evident enough that my duty is here.
May 10. Rosa has not yet come to the end of her matrimonial perplexities. The divorced wife of Ran Gargan is now reported as near death, and Rosa is debating whether to give up Dennis Maloney and wait for Ran.
"Of course Dennis is gone on me," she explained last night in the most cold-bloodedly matter-of-fact fashion, "and I'd make him a main good wife. But Ran was always the boy for me, barring Father O'Rafferty wouldn't let me marry him."
"Rosa," I said, with all the severity I could command, "you must not talk like that. It sounds as if you hadn't any feeling at all. You don't mean it."
Rosa tossed her saucy head with emphatic scorn.
"What for don't I mean it?" she demanded. "Any woman wants to marry the man she likes best, and, barring him, she'd take up with the man who likes her best."
I laughed, and told her she was getting to be a good deal of a philosopher.
"Humph!" was her not very respectful reply; "it's the only choice a woman has, and she don't always have that. She's better off if she'll take the man that's sweet on her; but it's the way we girls are made, to hanker after the one we're sweet on ourselves."
Her earnestness so much interfered with the supper which she was giving to Thomasine that I took baby into my arms, and left Rosa free to speak out her mind without hindrance.