Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/36

Rh "No ifs," said Jane. "It is a lark, unconditionally and without qualification. And I've been thinking-at least I haven't really till this moment, but I'm thinking now. Bacon is an admirable brain tonic. Don't speak for a minute. I am evolving what they call a philosophy of life."

"More coffee, please," said Lucilla.

"Well," said Jane, putting in far too much milk, "it's like this. If we're going to worry all the time about the past and the future we shan't have any time at all. We must take everything as it comes and enjoy everything that is—well, that is enjoyable; like this very lovely breakfast. Live for the moment—and do all you can to make the next moment jolly too, as Carlyle says, or is it Emerson?"

"It may be Plato or Aristotle," said Lucilla, cutting more bread, "but I think not."

"It's common sense," insisted Jane. "We've got to try to make our livings somehow. We'll try all sorts of things, and we'll get fun out of them if we don't worry and grouse, But we shall never do anything if we think of ourselves as two genteel spinsters who have seen better days. We must think of ourselves as adventurers with the whole world before us. Frightfully interesting."

"There's something in what you say," said Lucilla.

"There's much more in what I am going to say," Jane rejoined; "it's wonderful how bacon clears the mind, Have you ever thought seriously about marriage?"

"Don't be silly," said Lucilla,

"There—that's exactly what I mean," said Jane cryptically, "Now I have thought about marriage—a good deal; and I believe that one reason why so many married people don't get on together—well, you know they don't, don't you?—is that they're not polite to each other. They think they know each other well enough to say, 'Don't be silly,' and things like that. No, of course I'm not offended. It was all right to rag each other when we were just cousins with nothing to do but play the fool. But now we're partners, my dear; almost as much as if we were a married couple.