For some minutes the two young girls had been standing in silence, Margaret engaged with experiments on her opening rose and Elsie with one arm around her and lazily observing the operation—both apparently full of that indolent enjoyment born of ease, content, and the languid air of the summer morning. Then the little one spoke:
"Margaret, do you know of what I have been thinking for the last two minutes?"
"Haven't any machine by which I could pry into the droll secrets of your brain, Elsie, my dear!" answered the taller, pleasantly, but with no smile upon her lips meanwhile, and apparently with all her attention yet absorbed in her horticultural experiment.
"Shall I tell you?" queried Elsie.
"Certainly, pet, if you like!" was the reply, the tone, as well as the word of endearment, showing indefinably that Margaret Hayley thought of herself as a woman and yet of her companion (of nearly the same age) as little more than a child.
"I was thinking," said the little girl, "how much of character is sometimes shown in the action of a moment, and how very different we are."
"Who thought your little head was so philosophical, Elsie?" answered Margaret, and this time she for a moment deserted her rose and looked around with a pleasant smile. "Well, the application of your thought to yourself and to me?"
"Oh," said the little one. "It was only about the rose. I should have plucked it, if I plucked it at all, and enjoyed it as it was. You are trying to make something else out of it, and yet show no wish to destroy the flower. A cruel woman—different from either of us, I hope—would probably be plucking off the leaves one by one and throwing them away, without caring how much pain she might be inflicting on the life of the flower, hidden away down somewhere in its heart."
"A very pretty idea, upon my word!" said Margaret, ceasing to blow upon and pluck at the leaves, and turning upon her companion a countenance showing something like surprised admiration. "And what do you make of my character, Elsie, as shown by my handling of the rose?"
"You must not be angry with me, Margaret," answered the young girl, a little in the spirit of deprecation. "But you see I should have been satisfied with the rose as it was, and the other would have been cruelly dissatisfied with it in any shape, and you——"