I looked at him surprised. He talked as though he were ever so much older than I was, although he did not look more than six or seven and twenty. I forgot that even then there would be years between us. I always was forgetting that I was scarcely more than a child.
"I think that would be silly," said I, loftily. I forgot another thing, and that was that I had shown Mr. Harrod pretty constantly since he had been at the Grange, that I was not fond of admitting there was anything I could not understand, and that if there were any shrewdness in him, he must have set it down by this time as a special trait in me.
"Well, anyhow you understand the 'Fair Maid of Perth,'" added he.
"Yes," answered I. "The heroine is like my sister, beautiful, and dreadfully good."
I was ashamed directly I had said it: praising one's sister was almost like praising one's self.
"Indeed," said he; "that's not a fault from which most of us suffer, but then very few of us have people at hand ready and generous enough to sing our praises."
I might have taken the speech as a compliment, I suppose, but it seemed so natural to praise Joyce that I confess it rather puzzled me.
"You must miss your sister," added Mr. Harrod.
"Of course I do," cried I, warmly. "Luckily she isn't going to be away for long, or I don't know what mother would do. She's mother's right hand in the house. I'm no use in-doors."