Part 3 (1/2)
The alacrity with which she complied was flattering at least, and she led me out on the piazza, that corresponded with my day-dream.
”Zillah,” called Mrs. Tocomb to her little girl, ”do not bother Emily Warren. She may wish to be alone. Stay with Adah till I am through.”
”Oh, mother, please, let me go with Emily Warren. I never have a good time with Adah.”
”There, mother, let her have her own way,” said Adah, pettishly. ”Emily Warren, thee shouldn't pet her so if thee doesn't want to be bothered by her.”
”She does not bother me at all,” said Miss Warren quietly. ”I like her.”
The little girl that had been ready to cry turned to her friend a radiant face that was eloquent with the undisguised affection of childhood.
”Zillah evidently likes you, Miss Warren,” I said, ”and you have given the reason. You like her.”
”Not always a sufficient reason for liking another,” she answered.
”But a very good one,” I urged.
”There are many better ones.”
”What has reason to do with liking, anyway?” I asked.
The mirthfulness I had noted before glimmered in her eyes for a moment, but she answered demurely, ”I have seen instances that gave much point to your question, but I cannot answer it,” and with a slight bow and smile she took her hat from Zillah and went down the path with an easy, natural carriage, that nevertheless suggested the city and its pavements rather than the country.
”What were you two talking about?” asked Adah, with a trace of vexed perplexity on her brow, for I imagined that my glance followed Miss Warren with some admiration and interest.
”You must have heard all we said.”
”Where was the point of it?”
”What I said hadn't any point, so do not blame yourself for not seeing it. Don't you like little Zillah? She seems a nice, quiet child.”
”Certainly I like her--she's my sister; but I detest children.”
”I can't think that you were detested when you were a child.”
”I don't remember: I might have been,” she replied, with a slight shrug.
”Do you think that, as a child, you would enjoy being detested?”
”Mother says it often isn't good for us to have what we enjoy.”
”Undoubtedly your mother is right.”
”Well, I don't see things in that way. If I like a thing I want it, and if I don't like it I don't want it, and won't have it if I can help myself.”
”Your views are not unusual,” I replied, turning away to hide my contracting brow. ”I know of others who cherish like sentiments.”
”Well, I'm glad to meet with one who thinks as I do,” she said complacently, and plucking a half-blown rose that hung near her, she turned its petals sharply down as if they were plaits of a hem that she was about to st.i.tch.
”Here is the first harmonic chord in the sweet congeniality of which I dreamed,” I inwardly groaned; but I continued, ”How is it that you like Zillah as your sister, and not as a little girl?”