“If we needed a home,” said Graeme. “But, Rose, I am content with the home we have.”
“Content!” repeated Rose, impatiently. “There is surely something better than content to be looked for in the world;” and she rose and walked about the room.
“Content is a very good thing to have,” said Graeme, quietly.
“Yes, if one could have it. But now, Graeme, do tell me what is the good of such a life as we are living now?—as I am living, I ought to say. Your life and work are worth a great deal to the rest of us; though you must let me say I often wonder it contents you. Think of it, Graeme! What does it all amount to, as far as I am concerned, I mean? A little working, and reading, and music; a little visiting and housekeeping, if Fanny be propitious—coming, and going, and smiling, and making believe enjoy it, when one feels ready to fly. I am sick of the thought of it all.”
Graeme did not answer her. She was thinking of the time when she had been as impatient of her daily life as this, and of how powerless words, better than she could hope to speak, had been to help her; and though she smiled and shook her head at the young girl’s impetuous protest against the uselessness of her life, her eyes, quite unconsciously, met her sister’s with a look of wistful pity, that Rose, in her youthful impatience and jealousy, was quick to resent.
“Of course, the rest would make an outcry and raise obstacles—that is, if they were to be consulted at all,” she went on. “But you ought to know better, Graeme,” added she, in a voice that she made sharp, so that her sister need not know that it was very near being tearful.
“But, Rose, you have not told me yet what it is you would do, if you could have your own way. And what do you mean by having a life of your own, and being independent? Have you any plan?”
Rose sat down, with a little sigh of impatience.
“There is surely something that we could do, you and I together. I can have no plan, you know quite well; but you might help me, instead of—” Instead of laughing at me, she was going to say, but she stopped, for though Graeme’s lips were smiling, her eyes had a shadow in them that looked like coming tears; and the gaze, that seemed resting on the picture on the wall, went farther, Rose knew; but whether into the past or the future, or whether it was searching into the reason of this new eagerness of hers to be away and at work, she could not tell. However it might be, it vexed and fretted her, and she showed it by sudden impatient movements, which recalled her sister’s thoughts.
“What is it, Rose? I am afraid I was thinking about something else. I don’t think I quite understand what you were saying last,” said Graeme, taking up her work as a safe thing on which to fix her eyes.