"I had you and the pitcher for the foundation," said Miss Prudence, in a tone of mock humility.
"Don't you think—" Marjorie's face had a world of suggestion in it—"that 'The Swan's Nest' is bad influence for girls? Little Ellie sits alone and builds castles about her lover, even his horse is 'shod in silver, housed in azure' and a thousand serfs do call him master, and he says 'O, Love, I love but thee.'"
"But all she looks forward to is showing him the swan's nest among the reeds! And when she goes home, around a mile, as she did daily, lo, the wild swan had deserted and a rat had gnawed the reeds. That was the end of her fine castle!"
"'If she found the lover, ever,
Sooth, I know not, but I know
She could never show him, never,
That swan's nest among the reeds,'"
quoted Marjorie. "So it did all come to nothing."
"As air-castles almost always do. But we'll hope she found something better."
"Do people?" questioned Marjorie.
"Hasn't God things laid up for us better than we can ask or think or build castles about?"
"I hope so," said Marjorie; "but Hollis Rheid's mother told mother yesterday that her life was one long disappointment."
"What did your mother say?"