“Dear, I don’t much believe in making plans for always. ‘Short views’ are best, you know. We might try it for a year, and then decide.”
“Eunice, if I liked to take it, I might have the school at the Corners this winter; and I could be at home.”
“Yes; and that would be pleasant all round, if it were necessary. But I think it would be wiser for you to go back to the seminary this winter.”
Fidelia did not answer immediately. Indeed, she rose and went the length of the garden, and stood looking over the fields to the river and the hills, and she was saying some hard things to herself as she stood there. In a little she turned and came slowly back again.
“Well, dear, what do you say?” said Eunice gently.
“I say that the plan is good, if you like it. It is I who am all wrong. It is hateful in me, I know, but, Eunice, I could not have any one come between you and me. Not any one, Eunice.”
“But, my darling,” cried Eunice, laughing a little, and stretching out her hands, “that could never be! Why, you are all I have got!”
Fidelia sat down on the step, and laid her face for a minute on her sister’s lap.
“I never knew till lately that I had an envious and jealous disposition,” said she in a little.
“But you need not be jealous of Ruby Stone, or of any one else, as far as I am concerned, dear. I am almost sorry now, that she did not stay another day, so that you might have seen her. Oh, you will like her, I am sure!—she is so sincere and simple, and so much in earnest.”