All we can do arbitrarily is to make it a joy or a pain of it.

Haven't you felt that ?" The other girl looked at her uncertainly.

"I have felt it sometimes," she said, "but now it seems to me that I can never be sure that there is not some qualification in it--some hidden flaw." "Don't you think it's worth making the best of?
Can't we make up our minds to have a little charity for the flaws ?" Elfrida shook her head.

"I don't think I'm capable of a friendship that demands charity," she said.
"And yet, whether we close each other's lips or not, we will always have things to say, the one to the other, in this world.

Is it to be dumbness between us ?" There was a moment's silence in the room--a crucial moment, it seemed to both of them.