Part 5 (2/2)
But the letters had given Marjorie something to think about.
I had decided to hasten over the story of Marjorie's childhood and bring her into her joyous and promising girlhood, but the child's own words about the ”other part” that she must have a ”good deal” of have changed my mind. Surely G.o.d does care for the ”other part,” too.
And I wonder what it is in you (do you know?) that inclines you to hurry along and skip a little now and then, that you may discover whether Marjorie ever married Hollis? Why can't you wait and take her life as patiently as she did?
That same Sat.u.r.day evening Marjorie's mother said to Marjorie's father, with a look of perplexity upon her face,
”Father, I don't know what to make of our Marjorie.”
He was half dozing over the _Agriculturist_; he raised his head and asked sharply, ”Why? What has she done now?”
Everybody knew that Marjorie was the apple of her father's eye.
”Nothing new! Only everything she does _is_ new. She is two Marjories, and that's what I can't make out. She is silent and she is talkative; she is shy, very shy, and she is as bold as a little lion; sometimes she won't tell you anything, and sometimes she tells you everything; sometimes I think she doesn't love me, and again she loves me to death; sometimes I think she isn't as bright as other girls, and then again I'm sure she is a genius. Now Linnet is always the same; I always know what she will do and say; but there's no telling about Marjorie. I don't know what to make of her,” she sighed.
”Then I wouldn't try, wife,” said Marjorie's father, with his shrewd smile. ”I'd let somebody that knows.”
After a while, Marjorie's mother spoke again:
”I don't know that you help me any.”
”I don't know that I can; girls are mysteries--you were a mystery once yourself. Marjorie can respond, but she will not respond, unless she has some one to respond _to_, or some _thing_ to respond to. Towards myself I never find but one Marjorie!”
”That means that you always give her something to respond to!”
”Well, yes, something like it,” he returned in one of Marjorie's contented tones.
”She'll have a good many heart aches before she's through, then,” decided Mrs. West, with some sharpness.
”Probably,” said Marjorie's father with the shadow of a smile on his thin lips.
III.
WHAT ”DESULTORY” MEANS.
”A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.”
”Miss Prudence! O, Miss Prudence!”
It was summer time and Marjorie was almost fourteen years old. Her soul was looking out of troubled eyes to-day. Just now life was all one unanswered question.
”Marjorie! O, Marjorie!” mimicked Miss Prudence.
”I don't know what _desultory_ means,” said Marjorie.
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