Mrs. Wyvis Brand was silent for a minute or two. A tear gathered in each of her defiant black eyes, but she did not allow either of them to fall.
"You're a queer one," she said, with a hard laugh. "I never met anybody like you before. You're religious, aren't you?"
"I don't know: I should like to be," said Janetta, soberly.
"That's the queerest thing you've said yet. And all you religious people look down on folks like me."
"Then I'm not religious, for I don't look down on folks like you at all," said Janetta, calmly adopting Mrs. Brand's vocabulary.
"Well, you ought to. I'm not a very good sort myself."
Janetta smiled, but made no other answer: And presently Juliet Brand remarked—
"I dare say I'm not so bad as some people, but I've never been a saint, you know. And the day I came here I was in an awful temper. I struck you, didn't I?"
"Oh, never mind that," said Janetta, hastily. "You were tired: you hardly knew what you were doing."
"Yes, I did," said Mrs. Brand. "I knew perfectly well. But I hated you, because you lived here and had care of Julian. I had heard all about you at Beaminster, you see. And people said that you would probably marry Wyvis when he came home again. Oh, I've made you blush, have I? It was true then?"