"Oh, I know he will," said Mary, fervently. "I'm sure of it. Couldn't we do something for you, Bessie?"
"No, there isn't anything. But—thank you. I know you always think of me, and that's worlds. When are you coming up again?"
"I don't know. Next week, some time."
"Come in and see me—and Alan, if he should be at home. He likes you, and he will be so glad."
Mary kissed Bessie for consent. "You know how much I admire Alan. He could be anything."
"Yes, he could. If he could!"
Bessie seldom put so much earnest in anything, and Mary loved (as she would have said) the sad sincerity, the honest hopelessness of her tone. "We must help him. I know we can."
"We must try. But people who could—if they could—" Bessie stopped.
Her friend divined that she was no longer speaking wholly of her brother, but she said: "There isn't any if about it; and there are no ifs about anything if we only think so. It's a sin not to think so."
The mixture of severity and of optimism in the nature of her friend had often amused Bessie, and it did not escape her tacit notice in even so serious a moment as this. Her theory was that she was shocked to recognize it now, because of its relation to her brother, but her theories did not always agree with the facts.