“Esther will make a very kind, gentle, tender one.”
“Oh, yes; but she won’t be quite what you are. We have all been children together, and you have fitted in with us ever since that journey when we talked incessantly about Jotapata.” Then, as Babie made no answer, Sydney gave her a squeeze, and whispered, “I know!”
“Who told you?” asked Babie, with eyes on the fire.
“Mamma, when I was crazy with Cecil for caring for a pretty face instead of real stuff. She thought it would hurt Duke if I went on.”
“Does he care still?” said Babie, in a low voice.
“Oh, Babie, don’t you feel how much?”
“Do you know, Sydney, sometimes I can’t believe it. I’m sure I have no right to complain of being thought a childish, unfeeling little wretch, when I recollect how hard, and cold, and impertinent I was to him three years ago.”
“It was three years ago, and we were very foolish then,” consolingly murmured the wisdom of twenty, not without recollections of her own.
“I hope it was only foolishness,” said Barbara; “but I have only now begun to understand the rights of it, only I could not bear the thoughts of seeing him again. And now he is so kind!”
“Do you wish you had?”