"What I said hadn't any point, so do not blame yourself for not seeing
it. Don't you like little Zillah? She seems a nice, quiet child."

"Certainly I like her--she's my sister; but I detest children."

"I can't think that you were detested when you were a child."

"I don't remember: I might have been," she replied, with a slight
shrug.

"Do you think that, as a child, you would enjoy being detested?"

"Mother says it often isn't good for us to have what we enjoy."

"Undoubtedly your mother is right."

"Well, I don't see things in that way. If I like a thing I want it,
and if I don't like it I don't want it, and won't have it if I can
help myself."

"Your views are not unusual," I replied, turning away to hide my
contracting brow. "I know of others who cherish like sentiments."

"Well, I'm glad to meet with one who thinks as I do," she said
complacently, and plucking a half-blown rose that hung near her, she
turned its petals sharply down as if they were plaits of a hem that
she was about to stitch.

"Here is the first harmonic chord in the sweet congeniality of which I