“No,” she said, “I couldn’t talk like you. I never talk except when--except when--I have got something to say; that is, of course, I mean something that is--something--not merely out of my head, like you. I am not clever enough for that.” “Is she making fun of us, Phyll?” “I think so, Dor. She is fact, and we are--well, what are we?--not fiction altogether, because we’re real enough in flesh and blood.” Effie was moved to defend herself. “You are like two young ladies in a book,” she said, “and I am just a girl like anybody else. I say How-do-you-do? and Do you think it will be a fine day? or I can tell you if anything has happened in the village, and that Dr. Jardine was called away this morning to Fairyknowe, so that somebody there must be ill. But you make up what is very nice to listen to, and yet it makes one laugh, because it is about nothing at all.” “That is quite true,” said Doris; “that is our way. We don’t go in for fact. We belong to the speculative side. We have nothing real to do, so we have to imagine things to talk about.” “And I hope you think we do it well,” said Phyllis with a laugh. Effie was encouraged to laugh too; but her feelings were very complicated; she was respectful and yet she was a little contemptuous. It was all new to her, and out of her experience; yet the great house, the darkened rooms, the luxury and ease, the way in which life went on, apparently without any effort on the part of this cluster of people, who had everything they wanted without even the trouble of asking for it, as in a fairy tale, harmonized with the artificial talk, the speculations, the studies which were entirely voluntary, without any use as Effie thought, without any call for them. She herself was not indeed compelled to work as poor girls were, as governesses were, even as the daughters of people within her own range, who made their own dresses, and taught their little brothers and sisters, had to do. But still there were certain needs which she supplied, and cases in which she had a necessary office to fulfil. There were the flowers for instance. Old Pirie always brought her in a basketful whenever she wanted them; but if Pirie had to be trusted to arrange the flowers! In Allonby, however, even that was done; the vases refilled themselves somehow, as if by help of the fairies; the table was always magnificent, but nobody knew when it was done or who did it--nobody, that is, of the family. Phyllis and Doris decided, it was to be supposed, what they should wear, but that was all the trouble they took even about their dress. Numbers of men and women worked in the background to provide for all their wants, but they themselves had nothing to do with it. And they talked as they lived.