Some minutes passed in this occupation. Then when her spoils were carefully tied together, Betty having also provided herself with string, they set off at a good pace, soon leaving the little copse behind them, and crossing the high-road in the direction of a long hilly path ending in a stretch of table-land which was a favourite resort of the sisters. The grass was so short and thymy that it was rarely even damp, and on one side the view was certainly attractive.
“I have always liked this place,” said Betty, “ever since I was quite tiny. Do you remember, Eira, the dreams we had of catching a lamb and taking it home for a pet? We were to hide it somewhere or other.”
“Yes,” replied Eira, “in the china closet out of the nursery, and get up in the night to play with it, and then put it to sleep in each of our beds in turn. It was never to grow any bigger, it was always to be a lambkin.”
“And so it has remained,” said Frances, smiling, “and always will! That is one of the comforts of dream-life: nobody gets older, or uglier, or anything they shouldn’t. And real life would be very dull without it.”
“It’s dull enough with it,” said Betty, “or perhaps the truth is that we’re growing incapable of it for want of material to build with.”
“No,” said Frances; “I don’t agree with that. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention,’ and when one has a real fit of castle-building one creates the stones.”
“I wish one of us were poetical,” said Eira. “I’ve a vague feeling that something might be made of those ideas of yours and Betty’s, Frances, if either of you had the least knack of versification. And then perhaps we might send your poem to some magazine and get a guinea or half a guinea for it. Fancy how nice that would be!”
Betty gave a deep sigh.
“What is the matter?” said Frances.
“Oh, it’s only a bit of the whole,” said Betty. “Why wasn’t one of us a genius, to give some point to life? Just because it is so monotonous, we are monotonous too—not the least tiny atom of a bit of anything uncommon about us.” Frances laughed.