“I don't know what it is from. Being melancholy myself, I say the words because they are melancholy.”
“Surely you can find some friend to console you in your affliction.”
“It is not easy to find a friend at any time, much less when things go wrong with us.”
“It is very hard if there is really no one to comfort you. Certainly I sha'n't try anything so hopeless as comforting a person who is resolved to be miserable. ‘There's such a charm in melancholy, I would not if I could, be gay.’ There's a quotation for you, as you like verses—particularly what I call moping verses.”
“Come, Alice! this is not like you; you are not so unkind as your words would seem; you are not cruel, Alice—you are cruel to no one else, only to me, your old friend.”
“I have said nothing cruel,” said Miss Alice, looking on the grass before her; “cruelty is too sublime a phrase. I don't think I have ever experienced cruelty in my life; and I don't think it likely that you have; I certainly have never been cruel to any one. I'm a very good-natured person, as my birds and squirrel would testify if they could.”
She laughed.
“I suppose people call that cruel which makes them suffer very much; it may be but a light look, or a cold word, but still it may be more than years of suffering to another. But I don't think, Alice, you ought to be so with me. I think you might remember old times a little more kindly.”
“I remember them very kindly—as kindly as you do. We were always very good friends, and always, I daresay, shall be. I sha'n't quarrel. But I don't like heroics, I think they are so unmeaning. There may be people who like them very well and—— There is Richard, I think, and he has thrown away his mallet. If his game is over, he will come now, and Lady May doesn't want the people to stay late; she is going into town, and I stay with her to-night. We are going to the Derby to-morrow.”
“I am going also—it was so kind of her!—she asked me to be of her party,” said Vivian Darnley.