“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Betty,” said Eira. “We can but try.”
“And even if we couldn’t manage it just now,” said Frances, “something might make it feasible after a time. It might prove the getting in the thin end of the wedge; you know papa and mamma sometimes come round to things if we wait long enough for—for them to get accustomed to the idea, as it were.”
“And when that time comes,” said Betty dolorously, “all the interest of the thing we wanted has gone.”
“O Betty, do not croak so,” said Eira; “it’ll depend on ourselves to keep up the interest by talking about it.”
“Yes,” said Frances, “you are quite right, though I have noticed that pleasant things seldom come quickly, and troubles and disappointments do. It isn’t often that one has some quite delightful surprise! Nice things either come in bits, so that you scarcely realise the niceness, or else they are pulled back when you feel sure of them, so that, even if they come after all, the bloom seems taken off.”
“Dear me, Frances,” said Eira, glancing up at her with a smile, “you are quite a pessimist for once.”
“No—no,” returned Frances. “I don’t mean to be. I was really thinking about it to myself and wondering why it is so. When there appears to be a sort of rule about anything, you can’t help beginning to hunt for the reason of it.”
“The rule with us,” said Betty, still in the same plaintive tone, “according to the old saying, is no rule, for the exceptions never appear.”
Both Frances and Eira laughed.
“Why, Betty, you are becoming quite paradoxical, inspired by melancholy,” exclaimed the latter; but not the ghost of a smile was to be raised this afternoon on Betty’s pretty little face.