“You enjoy yourself! Yes, in the way of being good to other people.”
“Hush!” she said, putting up her hand to stop him in his little speech, sincere as it was. “Shall I tell you what it was that put me out of order for any one’s eyes but an old friend’s? Nothing more than this sunshine, Mr. Pen. Don’t you recollect when we were young how a sudden thought of something that was coming would seize upon you, and flood you with delight—as the sun did just now?”
“I recollect,” he said, fixing his mild eyes upon her, and shaking his head, with a sigh: “but it never came.”
“That may be true enough; but the thought came, and ‘life is but thought,’ you know; the thing might not follow. However, we are all quite happy all the same.”
He looked at her, still shaking his head.
“I suppose so,” he said; “I suppose so; quite happy! but not as we meant to be; that was what you were thinking.”
“I did not go so far. I was not thinking at all. I think that I think very seldom. It only caught me as the old thought used to do, and brought so many things back.”
She smiled, but he sighed.
“Yes, everything is very different. Yourself—to see you here, offering up your life for others—making a sacrifice—— ”
“I have made no sacrifice,” she said, somewhat proudly, then laughed. “Is that because I am unmarried, Mr. Pen? You wedded people, you are so sure of being better off than we are. You are too complacent. But I am not so sure of that.”