“Yes!” said Mr. Bell. “It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young, afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive.”
“Let us go on to see little Susan,” said Margaret, drawing her companion up a grassy road-way, leading under the shadow of a forest glade.
“With all my heart, though I have not an idea who little Susan may be. But I have a kindness for all Susans, for simple Susan’s sake.”
“My little Susan was disappointed when I left without wishing her good-bye; and it has been on my conscience ever since, that I gave her pain which a little more exertion on my part might have prevented. But it is a long way. Are you sure you will not be tired?”
“Quite sure. That is, if you don’t walk so fast. You see, here there are no views that can give one an excuse for stopping to take breath. You would think it romantic to be walking with a person ‘fat and scant o’ breath’ if I were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Have compassion on my infirmities for his sake.”
“I will walk slower for your own sake. I like you twenty times better than Hamlet.”
“On the principle that a living ass is better than a dead lion?”
“Perhaps so. I don’t analyse my feelings.”
“I am content to take your liking me, without examining too curiously into the materials it is made of. Only we need not walk at a snail’s pace.”
“Very well. Walk at your own pace, and I will follow. Or stop still and meditate, like the Hamlet you compare yourself to, if I go too fast.”