"And people paint fruit, and dead fish on platters, and
pitchers of lemonade with ice in,--why don't you try things like those?"
"I suppose they're easier," Olive returned with a sigh, "but who could
bear to do them when there are living, breathing, moving things; things
that puzzle you by looking different every minute? No, I'll keep on
trying, and when you get a little older we'll run away together and live
and learn things by ourselves, in some place where father can never
find us!"
"He wouldn't search, so don't worry," replied Cyril quietly, and the two
looked at each other and knew that it was so.
There, in the cedar hollow, then, lived Olive Lord, an angry, resentful,
little creature weighed down by a fierce sense of injury. Her gloomy
young heart was visited by frequent storms and she looked as unlovable
as she was unloved. But Nancy Carey, never shy, and as eager to give
herself as people always are who are born and bred in joy and love,
Nancy hopped out of Mother Carey's warm nest one day, and fixing her
bright eyes and sunny, hopeful glance on the lonely, frowning little
neighbor, stretched out her hand in friendship. Olive's mournful black
eyes met Nancy's sparkling brown ones. Her hand, so marvellously full of
skill, had never held another's, and she was desperately self-conscious;
but magnetism flowed from Nancy as electric currents from a battery. She
drew Olive to her by some unknown force and held her fast, not realizing
at the moment that she was getting as much as she gave.
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