" And I secretly rejoiced for Senda.
"I not can afford to sell t'em," he replied, with his back to me.
"Why, how so?"
"No, it iss t'is kind vhat I can exshange for five, six, maybe seven
specimenss fon Ahfrica undt Owstrahlia. No, I vill not sell t'em."
"Oh, I see," said I, in mortal disgust. "Fontenette, I'm going to bed."
And Fontenette went too.
The next day was cloudless--in two hearts; Senda's, and Fontenette's. As
to the sky, that is another matter; one of the charms of that warm wet
land is that, with all its sunshine, it is almost never without clouds.
And indeed it would be truer to say of my two friends' skies, that they
had clouds, but the clouds were silvered through with happy reassurances.
Jealousy, we are told, once set on fire, burns without fuel; but I must
think that that is oftenest, if not always, the jealousy of a selfish
love. Or, rather--let me quote Senda, as she spoke the only other time she
ever touched upon the subject with us. Our fat neighbor had dragged it in
again as innocently as a young dog brings an old shoe into the parlor,
and, the Fontenettes being absent, she had the nerve and wisdom not to
avoid it. Said she:
"Some of us--not all--have great power to love.
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