“Do you ever think it childish of me, liking to keep them?” said Janet, after a pause, during which, as they clung together, the two girls had been watching the fish, one of which rose to the surface, and, with its little gasping lips touched lightly the pinky finger-tip Patty placed beneath the water.
“Sometimes,” continued Janet, “it is so dull, so lonesome, in spite of the busy noises coming from the street. Wragg is kind, and so is poor old Mrs Winks; but—but,” hesitated the girl, “there are times when I don’t wish to be with them. He is often away for hours together, and one cannot always be at music; and then it is that I like to go down-stairs, and be with the little prisoned birds and things. And somehow they seem to know me, and flutter and leap to welcome me when I come. But you don’t think it childish?”
“Childish? No!” was the reply, as Patty again dipped a finger to have it saluted by the fish. “I love to come and feed the birds myself; but I would take them, if I could, all far away into the bright happy country, and then open the cage-doors and set them free one by one—one by one. How they would leap, and dart, and flutter as they felt the soft air waiting for them! I think it would be real happiness to see the little things leave off beating their breasts as they tried to get out; and then to listen to them singing from some tree!”
“Or else see some cruel hawk come and seize one,” said Janet, bitterly.
“Heigho! perhaps yes,” sighed Patty; “there’s always something to make life unhappy.”
“I like the goldfish,” said Janet, without seeming to heed the sigh. “They always put me in mind of lying there—just there!” and she pointed to a corner by the window, “when I was little and could not walk, but only lay there all day with my back aching, as I stretched out my hands to touch one of the little bright things as they sailed so easily round and round. I must have been very very little when he bought the first to please me. But Patty, Patty!” she exclaimed, as she peered in the other’s eyes, “what made you sigh, and say that there was always something to make you unhappy?”
Patty was silent, and gazed thoughtfully at the fish, as another, seeking the food so often given, rose and touched her finger.
“What did you mean?” said Janet again, bending forward to gaze in the soft grey eyes. “It was not because I spoke of the hawk?”
Patty shook her head.
“Well, perhaps not altogether—I mean, I don’t know,” she said, in a slow hesitating way. “But really I must go home now; I promised not to be very long.”