"Haven't any machine by which I could pry into the droll secrets of your brain, Elsie, my dear!" answered the taller, pleasantly, but with no smile upon her lips meanwhile, and apparently with all her attention yet absorbed in her horticultural experiment. "Shall I tell you?" queried Elsie. "Certainly, pet, if you like!" was the reply, the tone, as well as the word of endearment, showing indefinably that Margaret Hayley thought of herself as a woman and yet of her companion (of nearly the same age) as little more than a child. "I was thinking," said the little girl, "how much of character is sometimes shown in the action of a moment, and how very different we are." "Who thought your little head was so philosophical, Elsie?" answered Margaret, and this time she for a moment deserted her rose and looked around with a pleasant smile. "Well, the application of your thought to yourself and to me?" "Oh," said the little one. "It was only about the rose. I should have plucked it, if I plucked it at all, and enjoyed it as it was. You are trying to make something else out of it, and yet show no wish to destroy the flower. A cruel woman--different from either of us, I hope--would probably be plucking off the leaves one by one and throwing them away, without caring how much pain she might be inflicting on the life of the flower, hidden away down somewhere in its heart." "A very pretty idea, upon my word!" said Margaret, ceasing to blow upon and pluck at the leaves, and turning upon her companion a countenance showing something like surprised admiration. "And what do you make of my character, Elsie, as shown by my handling of the rose?" "You must not be angry with me, Margaret," answered the young girl, a little in the spirit of deprecation. "But you see _I_ should have been satisfied with the rose as it was, and the other would have been cruelly dissatisfied with it in any shape, and you----" "Well, dear? I----" "You showed that you were not entirely satisfied with every thing as it was, and that you had a little self-will leading you to force things to be as you chose, by trying to make that poor little flower outrun the course of nature and bloom before it was quite ready." "I think you are right, Elsie," said Margaret, nodding her head in that slight and repeated manner indicative of answering the mind within quite as much as any observation from without. "I am _not_ satisfied with every thing in the world, Elsie. I am not cruel, I hope and believe; but I am sharper, harder, more requiring than you, and consequently not formed for half so much true happiness. I _do_ feel like forcing things to be what I require, sometimes, and then I suppose I grow unamiable."