She laughs again with fresh delight at her own thought. That pig in the cabin has come back to her, filling her with amusement. Geoffrey regards her with puzzled eyes. What a strange temperament is this, where smiles and tears can mingle!
"What a curious child you are!" he says, at length. "You are never the same for two minutes together."
"Perhaps that is what makes me so nice," retorts Miss Mona, saucily, the sense of fun still full upon her, making him a small grimace, and bestowing upon him a bewitching glance from under her long dark lashes, that lie like shadows on her cheeks.
CHAPTER V.
HOW MONA BETRAYS WHAT MAKES GEOFFREY JEALOUS, AND HOW AN APPOINTMENT IS MADE THAT IS ALL MOON-SHINE.
"Yes, it certainly is a charm," says Geoffrey slowly "but it puzzles me. I cannot be gay one moment and sad the next. Tell me how you manage it."
"I can't, because I don't know myself. It is my nature. However depressed I may feel at one instant, the next a passing thought may change my tears into a laugh. Perhaps that is why we are called fickle; yet it has nothing to do with it: it is a mere peculiarity of temperament, and a rather merciful gift, for which we should be grateful, because, though we return again to our troubles, still the moment or two of forgetfulness soothes us and nerves us for the conflict. I speak, of course, of only minor sorrows; such a grief as poor Kitty's admits of no alleviation. It will last for her lifetime."
"Will it?" says Geoffrey, oddly.
"Yes. One can understand that," replies she, gravely, not heeding the closeness of his regard. "Many things affect me curiously," she goes on, dreamily,—"sad pictures and poetry and the sound of sweet music."