Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/69

Rh "Well, I don't know how you could act differently, to show it."

"Well, I do then," said Delia. "And if you don't make Mr. Flack understand I will."

"Oh, I guess he understands—he's so bright," Francie returned.

"Yes, I guess he does—he is bright," said Mr. Dosson. "Good-night, chickens," he added; and wandered off to a couch of untroubled repose.

His daughters sat up half an hour later, but not by the wish of the younger girl. She was always passive however, always docile when Delia was, as she said, on the war-path, and though she had none of her sister's insistence she was very courageous in suffering. She thought Delia whipped her up too much, but there was that in her which would have prevented her from ever running away. She could smile and smile for an hour without irritation, making even pacific answers, though all the while her companion's grossness hurt something delicate that was in her. She knew that Delia loved her—not loving herself meanwhile a bit—as no one else in the world probably ever would; and there was something droll in such plans for her—plans of ambition which could only involve a loss. The real answer to anything, to everything Delia might say in her moods of prefigurement was—"Oh, if you want to make out that people are thinking of me or that they ever will, you ought to remember