"Good gracious me!" cried I; "take them your own way by all means, only you might argue till you're black in the face, but you'll never get me to believe that it's all for the best whether the man one cares for breaks his neck or not."
"Oh, Meg, you know I didn't mean that," murmured Joyce, in a low, disheartened voice. The tears gathered over those clear blue eyes of hers, that were as untroubled waters whose transparent depths could be fathomed at a glance. There was never anything mysterious about my sister's eyes; they were simple as a little child's, but, unlike a child's, they had ceased to wonder.
The tears irritated me, but they made me ashamed of my unreasonable temper, and I said, quickly, with sudden change of mood: "Well, I'm a cross-patch of course; but you know it was enough to make anybody angry to see you sitting there so meek and patient when I knew you must be dying of anxiety. And all for nothing but to please two dear old people who have forgotten what it was to be young and eager. But you must write to Frank at once."
"He knows very well how sorry I am," said Joyce.
I think my face must have darkened again, for she added, almost humbly, "You know I never could write letters, and I had rather not vex mother."
"Then you'd rather let that poor fellow think you didn't care whether he was dead or alive than show mother you've got a mind and ten fingers of your own?" I cried.
"He must think what he likes," said Joyce, in her most quietly obstinate voice; "I don't want to write." And that was all I could get from her.
"Very well, I'll write, then," I said, with ill-concealed anger. "I like writing letters, and I am not afraid of mother."
I flew up-stairs; I did not dare trust myself to say another word, but on the first landing I looked down and saw her head upturned towards me. There was a pitiful look in the blue eyes.