“Yes, now you may,” said Lucy, laughing. Then, with an air of serious reflection, unfastening her large jet brooch, “But you must change brooches, Maggie; that little butterfly looks silly on you.”
“But won’t that mar the charming effect of my consistent shabbiness?” said Maggie, seating herself submissively, while Lucy knelt again and unfastened the contemptible butterfly. “I wish my mother were of your opinion, for she was fretting last night because this is my best frock. I’ve been saving my money to pay for some lessons; I shall never get a better situation without more accomplishments.”
Maggie gave a little sigh.
“Now, don’t put on that sad look again,” said Lucy, pinning the large brooch below Maggie’s fine throat. “You’re forgetting that you’ve left that dreary schoolroom behind you, and have no little girls’ clothes to mend.”
“Yes,” said Maggie. “It is with me as I used to think it would be with the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have got so stupid with the habit of turning backward and forward in that narrow space that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One gets a bad habit of being unhappy.”
“But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will make you lose that bad habit,” said Lucy, sticking the black butterfly absently in her own collar, while her eyes met Maggie’s affectionately.
“You dear, tiny thing,” said Maggie, in one of her bursts of loving admiration, “you enjoy other people’s happiness so much, I believe you would do without any of your own. I wish I were like you.”
“I’ve never been tried in that way,” said Lucy. “I’ve always been so happy. I don’t know whether I could bear much trouble; I never had any but poor mamma’s death. You have been tried, Maggie; and I’m sure you feel for other people quite as much as I do.”
“No, Lucy,” said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, “I don’t enjoy their happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I do feel for them when they are in trouble; I don’t think I could ever bear to make any one unhappy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry sometimes at the sight of happy people. I think I get worse as I get older, more selfish. That seems very dreadful.”
“Now, Maggie!” said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, “I don’t believe a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just because you are depressed by a dull, wearisome life.”