‘Not unhappy, exactly—but I do hate life. I feel it trying to down me all the time, and sometimes I am afraid that it will in the end.’
I wondered what Cousin Delia would have made of Sophia. She would not have felt like that, I thought, if she had been with Cousin Delia.
Sophia and I remained friends, but as the time went on it was not equal. She needed me more than I needed her. I think she wanted some one to admire and love very much, and she had no one else—and of course I had.
She said to me once:
‘I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be lovely like you.’
And I laughed at her and said:
‘But you don’t like pretty people.’ But I was pleased.
She said quite seriously:
‘I feel differently about it since I have known you, and besides, you’re more than pretty. You’re lovely. It’s like the sun coming out of clouds when you come into a room!’
I laughed at her, but I liked her saying that, all the same. Nobody had said things like that to me before.