"What a sigh!"
"I've been in rocking-chair-and-gossip land over on the big porch. I've heard everybody—in a petticoat—who wasn't there hanged, drawn, and quartered. Of course, I knew they were eager to get at me, and so I was obliging and came away."
Marie Caton laughed. "Miss Eden here is an optimist of the first water. If you ask her she'll tell you that women are growing beyond that sort of thing—that they don't sting one another half as much as they used to!"
"No, I don't think they do," said Mrs. Josslyn. "I think that's getting apparent nowadays. Speaking for myself, fresh air and out of doors and swinging off by one's self seem to make a body more or less charitable. But some of us have got the habit yet. Gnat or wasp or hornet or snake, on they go!" she laughed. "Over on the porch it wasn't anything but a little cloud of gnats. They weren't really stinging—just getting between your eyes and the blue sky."
"But it is growing better—it is, it is!" said Elizabeth. "I wouldn't give up that belief for anything."
"No, don't!" said Molly Josslyn. "I like women and like to think well of them."
A strong, rosy blonde, she stood up and stretched her arms above her head. "I wish there were a pool somewhere, deep enough to swim in! I'd like to cross the Hellespont this morning—swim it and swim back.—Christopher is coming to-morrow."
"Christopher?"
"My husband—Christopher Josslyn. They don't," said Mrs. Josslyn, "make them any nicer than Christopher! Christopher was my born mate." And went away with a beamy look, over the grass.
Marie spoke thoughtfully. "Yesterday I heard one of the gnats singing. It sang, 'Yes, rather handsome, but don't you find her dreadfully unfeminine?'"