'Ay, we're wonderful alike in temper, more's the pity, but I consider myself a fitter judge of right and wrong than Deb, who goes about and hears so much that it's all hearin' and no meditatin', whiles I sit here, and has the time and opportoonity to weigh the matters in and out, without the clack of many tongues to confuse my brain and make me say a man is a saint when he is a fool, not to say a sinner!'
Nothing that Gwen could say would calm the old woman, and when she went up to the cottage door, Deb remained conveniently deaf to all her knocks. She came home, and gave a graphic description of the quarrel to her sisters; but when their obstinacy was being condemned, Agatha said in her quiet way:
'Well, Gwen, you ought to have sympathy with them, for if any one ever goes against you, I am sure you feel as they do.'
'You mean I am fond of my own way and opinions, and won't bear contradiction! Oh, Agatha, how you love to preach to us all! I won't say you are mistaken, for I am not going to get up an argument, and I want you all to be especially agreeable while I lay a plan of mine before you.'
'Now for it,' murmured Clare; and both Agatha and Elfie leant back in their chairs, the one in anxious, the other in amused anticipation of what might follow.
CHAPTER IX
Gwen's Resolve
'How little thou canst tell
How much in thee is ill or well!
Nor for thy neighbour, nor for thee,
Be sure!'—Clough.
Gwen cleared her throat. She sat in a low wicker chair by the open window of the drawing room, and for a minute her eye wandered out into the back garden, which looked in perfect order, and hardly needed the incessant hoeing and weeding of a lanky youth, who was now resting on his hoe and leaning against the wall in a sleepy attitude.