“I know you mean to do the very best. I think you will.”
“Thank you. I am afraid you consider us all rather heathenish. I have only recently come to understand the full duty that I owe my brothers. I had left them in my uncle’s hands, quite satisfied, and believing that boys came up, somehow. I had no great trouble.”
“Because you were stronger. And Louis’ health and temperament are so different.”
“I have learned that I could not make him come to me, so I have gone to him.”
“He did come—”
“Yes; that was not the point I referred to, however. It is in the matter of confidence. He is so very reserved, so sensitive, so touchy, to use a common phrase. At a word he draws into his shell and keeps silence.”
“I found that out last summer,” I said with a smile.
“How did you manage?”
“I don’t know,” I answered looking over at the distant hills. “It just came, I think. When he wouldn’t talk on any subject I let it drop.”
“Ah, wise little one, there may be a secret, in that. I fancy that I have a failing in my desire to convince people. I want them to see the right.”