Page:On the Hill-top (1919).pdf/45

 many beads it took to make a bag; and then that girl went away. And then something reminded me of a curious new machine that I had heard of, and I started to tell about it, and nobody listened, and everybody talked louder than I did; and so I stopped and went away too."

"Stil misfitting!"

"Yes."

"And what about that last little group, the one you visited just before you came back to me?"

Marjorie sighed again. "That one looked just about the most interesting of any, because they were all so quiet and were gathered about one who was reading aloud, and I thought that I surely had found the right place at last, and I sat down so cozily to listen."

"But you didn't stay long."

"No, they were reading a very dreadful book about very dreadful things that were all past and over and gone, but which brought up hatred and anger and bitterness over matters that were settled and done with and a new chapter begun. I looked at the faces while she was reading and saw in them the very feelings that make dreadful things keep on happening all over the world; and oh, I did so wish that she would stop; but she kept on and on, and I saw by their eyes that I couldn't say anything then, and so I slipped away and came back to you,—and—and—and here I am."

"An all around misfit."

Marjorie nodded her head. "Everywhere but here," she said.