She looked and smiled. Strange to say, at this moment she was the most composed of the two, and Phillis was deeply mortified that it should be so. But all that Bice said was—
“That is a pity. But I don’t suppose I shall be able to forget.”
“It is not a pity if it saves either of us from unhappiness,” said Phillis, with much earnestness.
“Oh, I hope you will never be unhappy. It is so very miserable,” Bice said, dropping her hands with a little gesture of despair.
Her change of expression seemed to put them again into their right positions. Phillis, who had been annoyed at her own agitation and at the incredulous manner of the other girl, felt her pity, her sympathy growing up again as warm as ever. If Bice and Jack loved each other, as was surely the case, then she would not shrink. She smiled in her turn, but looked steadily out of the window.
“There are many sorts of unhappiness,” she said gently. “Some come so quietly that we have time to prepare and almost change their nature. And others are like sharp and sudden storms which seem to sweep us away, but are soon over, and then the skies are as smiling again as ever.”
“They are all hateful, whether they are of one sort or another,” said Bice in the same tone. “I never believed the books which said they were anything else, and I think you have been reading those books.”
“No,” said Phillis firmly, “I don’t believe they are all hateful. And it is something different from books which you and I shall have to teach us that.”
“What?”
“Never mind, you will tell me one of these days. Now shall we go down, and will you order the little carriage?”