Robina seized her by the shoulders and shook her back into herself.
"If it had been yours," said Robina, "you would deserve to have been
sent to bed."
"Well, then, why don't he go to bed?" argued Veronica.
Robina took her by the arm and walked her up and down just underneath
my window. I listened, because the conversation interested me.
"Pa, as I am always explaining to you," said Robina, "is a literary
man. He cannot help forgetting things."
"Well, I can't help forgetting things," insisted Veronica.
"You find it hard," explained Robina kindly; "but if you keep on
trying you will succeed. You will get more thoughtful. I used to be
forgetful and do foolish things once, when I was a little girl."
"Good thing for us if we was all literary," suggested Veronica.
"If we 'were' all literary," Robina corrected her. "But you see we
are not. You and I and Dick, we are just ordinary mortals. We must
try and think, and be sensible. In the same way, when Pa gets
excited and raves--I mean, seems to rave--it's the literary
temperament. He can't help it."
"Can't you help doing anything when you are literary?" asked
Veronica.
"There's a good deal you can't help," answered Robina. "It isn't
fair to judge them by the ordinary standard."
They drifted towards the kitchen garden--it was the time of
strawberries--and the remainder of the talk I lost. I noticed that
for some days afterwards Veronica displayed a tendency to shutting
herself up in the schoolroom with a copybook, and that lead pencils
had a way of disappearing from my desk.
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