Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/246

 show," I made answer, "and a bitter thing to have in my mind."

"Well, and aren't you wise enough to prefer the bitter things to the sweet things?" said my friend Annabel Lee. "For every sweet thing that you have in your mind, it is yours to pay a mighty bitter price. Whereas the bitter things are valuable possessions. And if it is true about your friends, of course you wish to know it."

"No," said I, "I don't wish to know it."

"But, at least," said my friend Annabel Lee, with a wonderful softening of her voice into something that was sincere and enchanting, "believe what I told you about it, for in that case you and I have that good gift—a bond of sympathy. For if I had friends, of that kind, they would look upon me as something with much to acquire, very sure. But don't," said my friend Annabel Lee, hastily, "consider the