“Very true, auntie; none in the world, I believe.”
The girl was looking partly over her shoulder, out of the window, upward towards the clouds, and she sighed heavily; and recollecting herself, looked again in her aunt’s face and smiled.
“I wish you could have stayed a little longer here,” said her aunt.
“I wish I could,” she answered slowly, “I was thinking of talking over a great many things with you—that is, of telling you all my long stories; but while those people were staying here I could not, and now there is not time.”
“What long stories, my dear?”
“Stupid stories, I should have said,” answered Alice.
“Well come, is there anything to tell?” demanded the old lady, looking in her large, dark eyes.
“Nothing worth telling—nothing that is—” and she paused for the continuation of her sentence.
“That is what?” asked her aunt.
“I was going to talk to you, darling,” answered the girl, “but I could not in so short a time—so short a time as remains now,” and she looked at her watch—a gift of old Squire Fairfield’s. “I should not know how to make myself understood, I have so many hundred things, and all jumbled up in my head, and should not know how to begin.”