"What is the use or sense of being so very gay?" I said to Priscilla,
while she was taking breath, after a great frolic. "I love to see a
sufficient cause for everything, and I can see none for this. Pray
tell me, now, what kind of a world you imagine this to be, which you
are so merry in."
"I never think about it at all," answered Priscilla, laughing. "But
this I am sure of, that it is a world where everybody is kind to me,
and where I love everybody. My heart keeps dancing within me, and
all the foolish things which you see me do are only the motions of my
heart. How can I be dismal, if my heart will not let me?"
"Have you nothing dismal to remember?" I suggested. "If not, then,
indeed, you are very fortunate!"
"Ah!" said Priscilla slowly.
And then came that unintelligible gesture, when she seemed to be
listening to a distant voice.
"For my part," I continued, beneficently seeking to overshadow her
with my own sombre humor, "my past life has been a tiresome one
enough; yet I would rather look backward ten times than forward once.
For, little as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for
one thing, that the good we aim at will not be attained. People
never do get just the good they seek. If it come at all, it is
something else, which they never dreamed of, and did not particularly
want. Then, again, we may rest certain that our friends of to-day
will not be our friends of a few years hence; but, if we keep one of
them, it will be at the expense of the others; and most probably we
shall keep none.
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