“I felt that it was bad for me, and so retired to private life.”
“Do you ever regret it?”
“Sometimes when the restless fit is on me: but not so often now as I used to do; for on the whole I’d rather be a woman than act a queen.”
“Good!” said David, and then added persuasively: “But you will play for me some time: won’t you? I’ve a curious desire to see you do it.”
“Perhaps I’ll try,” replied Christie, flattered by his interest, and not unwilling to display her little talent.
“Who are you making that for? it’s very pretty,” asked David, who seemed to be in an inquiring frame of mind that day.
“Any one who wants it. I only do it for the pleasure: I always liked pretty things; but, since I have lived among flowers and natural people, I seem to care more than ever for beauty of all kinds, and love to make it if I can without stopping for any reason but the satisfaction.”
“‘Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
“‘Then beauty is its own excuse for being,’”
observed David, who had a weakness for poetry, and, finding she liked his sort, quoted to Christie almost as freely as to himself.
“Exactly, so look at that and enjoy it,” and she pointed to the child standing knee-deep in graceful ferns, looking as if she grew there, a living buttercup, with her buff frock off at one plump shoulder and her bright hair shining in the sun.