“Well, I should,” said Doucebelle, quietly.
“Oh, thou!” was Eva’s answer, in the same tone. “Why, thou hast no heart to begin with.”
Doucebelle silently doubted that statement.
“O Eva, for shame!” said Marie. “Doucebelle always does what every body wants her, unless she thinks it is wrong.”
“Thou dost not call that love, I hope?”
“I think it is quite as like it as wishing people to do what they don’t want, to please you,” said Marie, sturdily.
“I don’t believe one of you knows any thing about it,” loftily returned Eva. “If I had been Margaret, now, I could not have sat quietly to that broidery. I could not have borne it!”
Margaret looked up quickly, changed colour, and with a slight compression of her lower lip, went back to her work in silence.
“But what wouldst thou have done, Eva?” demanded the practical little Marie. “Wouldst thou have stared out of the window all day long?”
“No!” returned Eva with fervent emphasis. “I should have wept my life away. But Margaret is not like me. She can get interested in work and other things, and forget a hapless love, and outlive it. It would kill me in a month.”