"Emmie, your eyes never smile," she said once, "and yet you say you are so happy, darling."
They were sitting alone in the porch; Cathy had just left them, Garth had fetched her away. Emmie was in her favorite position, with her head resting on her crossed arms on her sister's lap. They had sat for a long time so without speaking, only Queenie's fingers every now and then twined in the child's golden hair. "Why don't you teach your eyes to smile too?" she went on, half seriously.
Emmie wrinkled her brows thoughtfully. "I wish they would look like yours, Queen; but then I never saw any eyes like yours, even Cathy says so. When you laugh they seem full of brown sunshine, only so deep, deep down; and when a great thought comes to you, one seems to see it, somehow."
"Oh, hush, you little flatterer;" but Queenie blushed, well pleased, over the praise.
"You do not know half how beautiful I think you," continued the child, earnestly; "it makes me feel happy and good only to be near you. Do sisters always feel like that, I wonder?"
"No, darling, not always."
"It must be because we love each other so. There never was a time when your voice was not like music to me. Sometimes I love you so that I ache all over with it; that was in the dreadful old days, when I thought I must die and leave you. Oh, Queen, that would have been so very, very miserable."
"Miserable to lose you, Emmie! don't speak of it; I can't bear to think of it even now," pressing the child's slight figure closer in her arms.
"It would not be so dreadful now; I should not feel that you were quite so lonely, I mean. No, I will not talk any more about it," catching sight of Queenie's averted face; "we will never be sad, you and I, never."
"I wonder if we shall always live alone," she went on, while Queenie dried her eyes. "Perhaps one day you will marry—people do, you know. How strange that will be!"