"Very pleasant! I was with my dear Aunt Hal, in Philadelphia."
"But these days are better, Dolly," Miss Thayer went on. "That wasn't much compared to this."
"I don't know," said Dolly. "There was no care in those times."
"Care?" exclaimed Christina, as if she did not know the meaning of the word. "What care have you, Dolly? I have none, except the care to make my money buy all I want--which it won't, so I may as well make up my mind to it, and I do. What have you been getting in Rome?"
"Oh, more pleasure than I knew so many days could hold," said Dolly, laying some of the sticks of the fire straight.
"Isn't it wonderful? I think there's nothing like Rome. Unless, perhaps, Paris."
"Paris!" said Dolly. "What's at Paris?"
"Ah, you don't know it, or you wouldn't ask! Everything, my dear. Rome has a good deal, certainly, but Paris has _everything_. Now tell me,--are you engaged?"
"I? No. Of course not."
"I don't see why it's of course. Most people are at one time or another; and I didn't know but your time had come."
"No," said Dolly. "Neither the time nor the man. I've come to hear about yours."
"If he's good, you'll see him; the man, I mean. He promised to be with us at Christmas, if he could; and he always keeps his promises."
"That's a good thing," said Dolly. .
"Ye-s," said Christina, "that is, of course, a good thing. One likes to have promises kept. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing."
"Not of keeping promises!" said Dolly in unfeigned astonishment.
"I don't know," said Christina. "Sandie is so fixed in everything; he holds to his opinions and his promises and his expectations; and he holds a trifle too fast."
"He has a right to hold to his expectations, surely," said Dolly, laughing.
"Not too much," said Christina. "He has no right to expect everybody to keep their promises as precisely as he does his! People aren't made alike."
"No; but honour is honour."
"Come, now, Dolly," said Christina laughing in her turn, "you are another! You are just a little bit precise, like my Sandie. You cannot make all the world alike, if you try; and he can't."
"I am not going to try, and I think it would be a very stupid world if I could do it; but nobody ought to raise _expectations_ he is not prepared to gratify."
"Like a sentence out of a book!" cried Christina. "But Sandie is the most unchangeable person; he will not take any views of anything but the views he has always taken; he is as fixed as the rock of Gibraltar, and almost as distinct and detached from the rest of the world."
"And don't you like that?"
"No; confess I do not. I'd like him to come down a little from his high place and mix with the rest of us mortals."
"What expectations does he indulge which you are not willing to meet?"
"That's the very thing!" cried Christina, in her turn stooping to arrange the little sticks and pile more on; "he is unreasonable."
"How?"
"Wants me to marry him."
"Is that unreasonable?"
"Yes! till things are ready for such a step, and I am ready."
"What things?"
"Dolly, he is only the first officer of his ship. He was distinguished in the last war, and he has the prospect of promotion. I don't want to marry him till he is a captain."
"Why?" said Dolly.
"Why?--Don't you understand? He would have a better position then, and better pay; and could give me a better time generally; and mamma thinks we ought to wait. And I like waiting. It's better fun, I do think, to be engaged than to be married. I _know_ I shouldn't have my head near so much if I was married to Sandie. I do just as I like now; for mamma and I are always of a mind."
"And are not you and Mr. Shubrick of a mind?"
"Not about this," said Christina, getting up from the hearth, and laughing.
"Pray, if one may ask, how long have you and he been waiting already?"
"Oh, _he_ thinks it is a great while; but what is the harm of waiting?"
"Well, how long is it, Christina?"
"Dolly, we were engaged very young. It was before I left school; one summer when I was home for the vacation. I was sixteen; that is four years ago, and more."
"Four years!" cried Dolly.
"Yes. Of course we were too young then to think of marrying. He was home on furlough, and I was home for the vacation; and our houses were near together; and so we made it up. His people were not very well off, but mine were; so there was nothing in the way, and nobody objected much; only mother said we must wait."
"What are you waiting for now, Christina?"
"I told you. I am in no hurry, for my part. I want Sandie to get his ship; and in the meanwhile it is just as nice to be as we are. We see each other when we can; and Italy is Italy; and I am very contented.
Unfortunately, Sandie isn't."
"How long do you propose to go on waiting?"
"I don't know. Oh, I don't know! and I don't care. What is the harm of waiting?"
"That depends on what you promise yourselves in being married."
"Dolly," said Christina thoughtfully, "I don't promise myself anything much better than I have got now. If Sandie would only be content, I could go on so for ever."
"And not be married?"
"Besides, Dolly, I don't want to keep house in a small way. I do not!