No man
is worth it to a woman--no woman's worth it to a man. Can't you get
some ambition to do something? All your time's your own, and you
haven't got to work for your living. He's been generous enough--I'll
admit that. Let me give you lessons in drawing."
"I could never learn anything like that," said Sally, wearily.
"Haven't got it in me."
This mood of wilful depression, bordering upon melancholia, can be
perhaps the most trying test to friendship that exists. To throw life
into the balance of chance--to fling it absolutely away in a moment
of heroism for a friend one loves, is a simple task compared with
the unwearying patience that is needed to face the lightless gloom
of another's misery. It taints all life, discolours all pleasures,
tracks one--dogs one, like a shadow on the wall. Yet Janet passed
the test with love the greater, even at the end of the gauntlet of
those three weeks.
"I'll be with you all day, the day after to-morrow," she said, as
she departed; "and think about teaching the kiddies--I would if I
were you. You'd get awfully fond of them--as if they were your own.
Sons of gentlemen! Think of them! Dear little chaps! My God--the
mothers bore them, though.
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