herself to this point of view, to consider, however slightly, whether
it were right or wrong to do something that she particularly wished to
do.

But she found it very tiresome. The effort spoilt her temper, and no one
seemed to notice any change. She might as well be bad as good were there
no one present to perceive the difference. She gave it up, and, from
that moment found that she suffered Barbara less gladly than before.
Meanwhile, in Barbara also strange forces had been at work. She found
that her imagination (making up stories) simply, in spite of all the
Mary Adamses in the world, refused to stop. Still would the almond tree
and the fountain, the gold dust on the roofs of the houses when the sun
was setting, the racing hurry of rain drops down the window-pane, the
funny old woman with the red shawl who brought plants round in a
wheelbarrow, start her story telling.

Still could she not hold herself from fancying, at times, that her doll
Jane was a queen, and that Miss Letts could make "spells" by the mere
crook of her bony fingers. Worst of all, still she must think of her
Friend, tell herself with an ache that he would never come back again,
feel, sometimes, that she would give up Mary and all the rest of the
world if he would only be beside her bed, as he used to be, talking to
her, holding her hand. During these days, had there been any one to
observe her, she was a pathetic little figure, with her thin legs like
black sticks, her saucer eyes that so readily filled with tears, her
eager, half-apprehensive expression, the passionate clutch of the doll
to her heart, and it is, after all, a painful business, this
adoration--no human soul can live up to the heights of it, and, what is
more, no human soul ought to.