“Hush,” said Sara; “I never said any thing about a him. It is you who are such a romantic little girl. What I was speaking of was one’s duty; one has to do one’s duty, whether one likes it or not.”
This oracular speech was very disappointing to Pamela. She looked up eagerly with her bright eyes, trying to make out the romance which she had no doubt existed. “I can fancy,” she said, softly, “why you wanted your mother;” and her little hand stole into Sara’s, which lay on her knee. Sara did not resist the soft caress. She took the hand, and pressed it close between her own, which were longer, and not so rounded and childlike; and then, being a girl of uncertain disposition, she laughed, to Pamela’s great surprise and dismay.
“I think, perhaps, I like to be my own mistress best,” she said; “if mamma had lived she never would have let me do any thing I wanted to do—and then most likely she would not have known what I meant. It is Jack, you know, who is most like mamma.”
“But he is very nice,” said Pamela, quickly; and then she bent down her head as quickly, feeling the hot crimson rushing to her face, though she did not well know why. Sara took no notice of it—never observed it, indeed—and kept smoothing down in her own her little neighbor’s soft small hand.
“Oh yes,” she said, “and I am very fond of my brother; only he and I are not alike, you know. I wonder who Jack will marry, if he ever marries; but it is very fine to hear him talk of that—perhaps he never did to you. He is so scornful of every body who falls in love, and calls them asses, and all sorts of things. I should just like to see him fall in love himself. If he were to make a very foolish marriage it would be fun. They say those dreadfully wise people always do.”
“Do they?” said Pamela; and she bent down to look at the border of her little black silk apron, and to set it to rights, very energetically, with her unoccupied hand. But she did not ask any farther question; and so the two girls sat together for a few minutes, hand clasped in hand, the head of the one almost touching the other, yet each far afield in her own thoughts; of which, to tell the truth, though she was so much the elder and the wiser, Sara’s thoughts were the least painful, the least heavy, of the two.
“You don’t give me any advice, Pamela,” she said at last. “Come up the avenue with me at least. Papa has gone home, and it is quite dark here out of the sun. Put on your hat and come with me. I like the light when it slants so, and falls in long lines. I think you have a headache to-day, and a walk will do you good.”
“Yes, I think I have a little headache,” said Pamela, softly; and she put on her hat and followed her companion out. The sunshine had passed beyond Betty’s cottage, and cut the avenue obliquely in two—the one end all light, the other all gloom. The two young creatures ran lightly across the shady end, Sara, as always, leading the way. Her mind, it is true, was as full as it could be of her father’s communication, but the burden sat lightly on her. Now and then a word or two would tingle, as it were, in her ears; now and then it would occur to her that her fate was sealed, as she said, and a sigh, half false half true, would come to her lips, but in the mean time she was more amused by the novelty of the position than discouraged by the approach of fate.
“What are you thinking of?” she said, when they came into the tender light in the farther part of the avenue; for the two, by this time, had slackened their pace, and drawn close together, as is the wont of girls, though they did not speak.
“I was only looking at our shadows going before us,” said Pamela, and this time the little girl echoed very softly Sara’s sigh.