She was walking slowly and did not notice us in the distance.
“Let us hide,” suggested Sunbeam.
“No,” said I. “Remember my advancing years. Moreover, I am thinking if we do not make haste and deliver your message we shall be late back.”
So we walked a little quicker till we came up to her.
She was taller than Sunbeam, with a face whose greatest beauty was its sweetness. Yet with this there was mingled a sadness and seriousness I had never seen in Sunbeam, who was all lightness and love and tender feeling and little else, though that was heaven’s best.
Moonbeam shook hands with a quiet dignity and made no attempt to ask for or offer kisses, yet there was something very winning and frank about her, which made the contrast all the more delightful, because of a certain similarity. I thought on meeting they would have had so much to say that I should have become an unnecessary accompaniment to Sunbeam’s walk, but that was not so.
They walked along one on each side of me, as quietly and demurely as possible, till at last I asked Sunbeam why she was so silent.
“It’s my advancing years,” she said. “I feel as if the exertion to talk would be as tiring as to hide.”
“Why are you talking in such an old-fashioned way?” demanded Moonbeam, laughing.
“It’s my company manners. Mother says I must always accommodate myself to the society I’m in.”