Happie curled herself up at Margery's feet. She felt unwontedly long and awkward, conscious of her immaturity and a trifle shy, as she gazed up at Margery, sitting in her white kimono in the chair above her, her soft, luxuriant hair falling around her shoulders, her elbow resting on the window-sill, and her eyes gazing, dreamily bright in the moonlight, at the mountains with a gaze that seemed to look beyond them.
"The ocean is glorious on these moonlight nights," said Margery softly. "But I am not sure that the mountains are not even more beautiful. The contrast of their shadows makes the light more splendid—and then one feels as if they were hiding all sorts of mysteries. Almost anything might be in those hills—or come out from them."
"What will you do, Margery, if we stay here all winter? You know mother is not strong enough yet to take her position, and Aunt Keren says we are welcome to live in the Ark if we can make it go. Of course, we should go to town for visits—and you would have most of those visits," said Happie, remembering that this dawning young lady sister must have the benefit of New York, while she bided her time at home.
"Oh, I shall not mind at all," said Margery. "Indeed, I almost think I should prefer to stay. I am in my eighteenth year——"
"Yes, but how far in it?" interrupted Happie with a recurrence of her brief pang in the moment of meeting Margery, a vague jealousy of some unknown thing that was stealing her sister.
"Not far," smiled Margery. "But quite far enough to be slipping towards twenty so fast that it takes my breath away. I should be content to stay in the country all winter, reading and studying with mother, and learning all sorts of things. A woman ought to know all about cooking, mending, sewing—all those housewifely tasks—and I don't feel as if I knew anything, though I used to think I knew a great deal. Oh, yes; I should be very busy and quite happy if I stayed in the country all winter, and did not go to New York once."
"What has come over you?" demanded Happie, feeling certain, though she could not have told why, that it was something that she did not like. "And a woman, you say! Do you consider yourself a woman at your age?"
"No, but I shall be one very soon," said Margery placidly. "And I think I have changed my mind; I think I shall not care to be a society woman, only a thoroughly domestic one."
"Well, that's heaps better, but I don't see——" began Happie suspiciously. Then, interrupting herself, she said: "Tell me about the girls you met; you have not written much about them, and haven't said one word."
"I didn't make many acquaintances, Hapsie, dear," replied Margery. "Not as many as you would have done if you had not been such a dear, blessed, good girl as to let me go in your place. Oh, Happie, to think that I owe this lovely, lovely summer to you! I mean to be the best sister a girl ever had to pay you for it, or to pay you a little bit!"