Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/161

Rh had better try to be good, or no one would love her. She had tried, and she had never till that red-rose day doubted that such goodness as she had achieved must be her only claim to love. Now she knew better, and she looked out of her window at the brightening sky and the deepening shadows. But there was no one to throw her a rose with kisses on it.

"If I were a man," she said to herself, but in a very secret shadowy corner of her inmost heart, and in a wordless whisper, "if I were a man, I would go out this minute and find a sweetheart. She should have dark eyes, too, and rough brown hair, and pink cheeks."

In the outer chamber of her mind she said briskly—

"It's a lovely morning. It's a shame to waste it indoors. I'll go out."

The sun was fully up when she stole down through the still sleeping house and out into the garden, now as awake as a lady in full dress at the court of the King.

The garden gate fell to behind her, and the swing of her white skirts went down the green lane. On such a morning who would not wear