Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/137

Rh really so sensible! More so than I am and I seem”

“The church steeple and I the weathercock!” cried Jane. “So you are, so I am. But you’re afraid of hurting somebody’s feelings, if you go to bed and think the truth in the dark, where nobody can see you, and when everybody thinks you’re asleep! I’m not! I think it’s right to see straight—then you’re pretty sure to stand by people, because you haven’t anything to change your mind about. That cute little mother ought to be crazy over such a girl as you are, Mary, and such a pretty, clever thing as Mel”

“And such a flame-warm, and flame-clever, and flame-beautiful daughter as”

“Get the fire extinguisher, Molly!” Jane interrupted. “You see, after all, you do know that our cunning linnet ought to enjoy her young birds in this garden! Though I’m sorrier than you can be for her to have lost her voice. Somehow, I believe I know better than you do what that is to her. Molly, did you ever think of it? You’re the reliable, house-motherly little soul, and I’m the flighty Garden, yet I’m older than you are, though I’m not sixteen, and you’re trotting right up to your eighteenth bend in the road?”