Page:Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams.djvu/440

 "Oh, it might be," he sighed. "I expect so."

"Well, then," she said, "what's the use of talking about a 'finish?' We do keep looking ahead to things as if they'd finish something, but when we get to them, they don't finish anything. They're just part of going on. I'll tell you—I looked ahead all summer to something I was afraid of, and I said to myself, 'Well, if that happens, I'm finished!' But it wasn't so, papa. It did happen, and nothing' finished; I'm going on, just the same—only" She stopped and blushed.

"Only what?" he asked.

"Well" She blushed more deeply, then jumped up, and, standing before him, caught both his hands in hers. ""Well, don't you think, since we do have to go on, we ought at least to have learned some sense about how to do it?"

He looked up at her adoringly.

"What I think," he said, and his voice trembled;—"I think you're the smartest girl in the world! I wouldn't trade you for the whole kit-and-boodle of 'em!"

But as this folly of his threatened to make her tearful, she kissed him hastily, and went forth upon her errand.