But Milly’s discontented face showed that her remark, however ill-timed and ill-tempered, was sincerely meant. “Do you, now?” said good-natured Floyd. “What a pity! You must be bothered to death here.”
“Oh, I don’t live here. I wish I did. I live in a most uninteresting place. Isn’t Miss Fairfield lovely?”
“She certainly is,” said Floyd, looking at laughing Patty, as a pleasant contrast to this pouting girl. “She’s so sunny and happy.”
“Yes; she must have everything she wants.”
“Do you know, I think she’d be sunny if she didn’t have everything she wanted.”
“Well, then, it’s because she happens to be of that disposition,” and Milly sighed, as if that settled the matter.
As Floyd didn’t consider it his place to lecture a comparative stranger on the ethics of contentment, he changed the subject and talked of lighter matters. And so infectious was his own merry disposition, that he made Milly forget her discontent and smile so gaily that she was really charming.