Page:On the Hill-top (1919).pdf/42

 put my right foot forward first, and don't jump; how am I ever to get anywhere?' And she looked at me in a very superior and indulgent sort of a way and said sweetly, 'Oh, you will be taken care of.

The Dream laughed. "And so you couldn't follow all of their advices?"

"Follow them!" said Marjorie, "Why if I had followed them all I'd have been snuffed out like a candle;—and then I suppose that they would have gone on talking to the atmosphere and telling it what it ought to do about it, and what a mistake it was making in being built the way it was and in not wearing a hat."

"Good thing you escaped," said the Dream. "And what about the next group?"

Marjorie heaved a sigh. "They looked nice," she said, "but they were all talking about sicknesses and diseases and operations and things like that; and each was so eager to tell her own experience, with all the details, that she just fidgeted and fussed and could hardly sit still until she could get a word in edgewise to interrupt and begin her story, while the others fidgeted until they could get their turn. I stood it as long as I could, and then managed to slip away, and just as I was going, I noticed that another girl had slipped away too, and she came up to me. 'Isn't it dreadful?' she said, 'to talk about those things and go into all of those details, when there are so many beautiful things in the world to talk about?'

Yes,' I said, 'I got away just as soon as I