Page:An Old Fashioned Girl.djvu/181

Rh "Things worry me sometimes, but I just catch up a broom and sweep, or wash hard, or walk, or go at something with all my might, and I usually find that by the time I get through the worry is gone, or I've got courage enough to bear it without grumbling," answered Polly, cutting the brown loaf energetically.

"I can't do those things, you know; there's no need of it, and I don't think they'd cure my worrying," said Fanny, languidly feeding Ashputtel, who sat decorously beside her at the table, winking at the cream pot.

"A little poverty would do you good, Fan; just enough necessity to keep you busy till you find how good work is; and when you once learn that, you won't complain of ennui any more," returned Polly, who had taken kindly the hard lesson which twenty years of cheerful poverty had taught her.

"Mercy, no, I should hate that; but I wish some one would invent a new amusement for rich people. I'm dead sick of parties, and flirtations, trying to out-dress my neighbors, and going the same round year after year, like a squirrel in a cage."

Fanny's tone was bitter as well as discontented, her face sad as well as listless, and Polly had an instinctive feeling that some trouble, more real than any she had ever known before, was lying heavy at her friend's heart. That was not the time to speak of it, but Polly resolved to stand ready to offer sympathy, if nothing more, whenever the confidential minute came; and her manner was so kind, so comfortable, that Fanny felt its silent magic, grew more cheerful in the quiet atmosphere of that little room, and when