“I hope I shall understand her then, and you too, Connie.”
A shadow, just like the shadow of one of those white clouds above us, passed over her face, and she said, trying to smile:
“I shall never grow up, papa. If I live, I shall only be a girl at best—a creature you can’t understand.”
“On the contrary, Connie, I think I understand you almost as well as mamma. But there isn’t so much to understand yet, you know, as there will be.”
Her merriment returned.
“Tell me what girls are like, then, or I shall sulk all day because you say there isn’t so much in me as in mamma.”
“Well, I think, if the boys are like sparrows, the girls are like swallows. Did you ever watch them before rain, Connie, skimming about over the lawn as if it were water, low towards its surface, but never alighting? You never see them grubbing after worms. Nothing less than things with wings like themselves will satisfy them. They will be obliged to the earth only for a little mud to build themselves nests with. For the rest, they live in the air, and on the creatures of the air. And then, when they fancy the air begins to be uncivil, sending little shoots of cold through their warm feathers, they vanish. They won’t stand it. They’re off to a warmer climate, and you never know till you find they’re not there any more. There, Connie!”
“I don’t know, papa, whether you are making game of us or not. If you are not, then I wish all you say were quite true of us. If you are then I think it is not quite like you to be satirical.”
“I am no believer in satire, Connie. And I didn’t mean any. The swallows are lovely creatures, and there would be no harm if the girls were a little steadier than the swallows. Further satire than that I am innocent of.”
“I don’t mind that much, papa. Only I’m steady enough, and no thanks to me for it,” she added with a sigh.