“Is it wrong to build castles for any other reason than for making disappointments?” Marjorie asked anxiously.

“Yes, you dwell only on pleasant things and thus you do not prepare yourself, or rather un-prepare yourself for bearing trial.  And why should a little girl live in a woman’s world?”

“Oh, because it’s so nice!” cried Marjorie.

“And are you willing to lose your precious childhood and girlhood?”

“Why no,” acknowledged the child, looking startled.

“I think you lose a part of it when you love best to look forward to womanhood; I should think every day would be full enough for you to live in.”

“To-day is full enough; but some days nothing happens at all.”

“Now is your study time; now is the time for you to be a perfect little daughter and sister, a perfect friend, a perfect helper in every way that a child may help.  And when womanhood comes you will be ready to enjoy it and to do its work.  It would be very sad to look back upon a lost or blighted or unsatisfying childhood.”

“Yes,” assented Marjorie, gravely.

“Perhaps you and Linnet have been reading story-books that were not written for children.”

“We read all the books in the school library.”

“Does your mother look over them?”

“No, not always.”

“They may harm you only in this way that I see.  You are thinking of things before the time.  It would be a pity to spoil May by bringing September into it.”

“All the girls like the grown-up stories best” excused Marjorie.

“Perhaps they have not read books written purely for children.  Think of the histories and travels and biographies and poems piled up for you to read!”

“I wish I had them.  I read all I could get.”

“I am sure you do.  O, Marjorie, I don’t want you to lose one of your precious days.  I lost so many of mine by growing up too soon.  There are years and years to be a woman, but there are so few years to be a child and a girl.”

Marjorie scribbled awhile thinking of nothing to say.  Had she been “spoiling” Linnet, too?  But Linnet was two years older, almost old enough to think about growing up.

“Marjorie, look at me!”

Marjorie raised her eyes and fixed them upon the glowing eyes that were reading her own.  Miss Prudence’s lips were white and tremulous.

“I have had some very hard things in my life and I fully believe I brought many of them upon myself.  I spoiled my childhood and early girlhood by light reading and castle-building; I preferred to live among scenes of my own imagining, than in my own common life, and oh, the things I left up done!  The precious girlhood I lost and the hard womanhood I made for myself.”

The child’s eyes were as full of tears as the woman’s.

“Please tell me what to do,” Marjorie entreated.  “I don’t want to lose anything.  I suppose it is as good to be a girl as a woman.”