ly!
Engaged! H'm! To that young--! Why, they're babes! And what is it
about her that reminds me--reminds me--What is it? Lucky devil,
Felix--to have her for daughter! Engaged! The little thing's got her
troubles before her. Wish I had! By George, yes--wish I had!' And with
careful fingers he brushed off the ash that had fallen on his lapel. . .

The little thing who had her troubles before her, sitting in her bedroom
window, had watched his white front and the glowing point of his cigar
passing down there in the dark, and, though she did not know that they
belonged to him, had thought: 'There's some one nice, anyway, who likes
being out instead of in that stuffy drawing-room, playing bridge, and
talking, talking.' Then she felt ashamed of her uncharitableness. After
all, it was wrong to think of them like that. They did it for rest after
all their hard work; and she--she did not work at all! If only Aunt
Kirsteen would let her stay at Joyfields, and teach her all that Sheila
knew! And lighting her candles, she opened her diary to write.

"Life," she wrote, "is like looking at the night. One never knows what's
coming, only suspects, as in the darkness you suspect which trees are
what, and try to see whether you are coming to the edge of anything. . .
A moth has just flown into my candle before I could stop it! Has it
gone quite out of the world? If so, why should it be different for us?
The same great Something makes all life and death, all light and dark,
all love and hate--then why one fate for one living thing, and the
opposite for another? But suppose there IS nothing after death--would it
make me say: 'I'd rather not live'? It would only make me delight more
in life of every kind. Only human beings brood and are discontented, and
trouble about future life. While Derek and I were sitting in that field
this morning, a bumblebee flew to the bank and tucked its head into the
grass and went to sleep, just tired out with flying and working at its
flowers; it simply snoozed its head down and went off. We ought to live
every minute to the utmost, and when we're tired out, tuck in our heads
and sleep. . . . If only Derek is not brooding over that poor man! Poor
man--all alone in the dark, with months of misery before him! Poor soul!
Oh! I am sorry for all the unhappiness of people! I can't bear to think
of it. I simply can't." And dropping her pen, Nedda went again to her
window and leaned out.