Clerron, I do not understand you."
"My dear, you never can understand me."
"I know it," said Ivy, with her old humility; "but, at least, I might
understand whether I have vexed you."
"You have not vexed me."
"I spoke proudly and rudely to you. I was angry, and so unhappy. I
shall always be so; I shall never be happy again; but I want you to be,
and you do not look as if you were."
If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have spoken so; but
she was, so she did.
"I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied with my own
preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or
how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you,
however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical
notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to think of it
again. _I_ never attributed such a thought or feeling to you."
"Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?"
"Can there be anything else?"
"I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have been unhappy but for
that, at least not so soon; but that alone could never have made me
so."
Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its head into a
corner and thinking itself out of danger because it cannot see the
danger.
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