'Oh, that was deacons, daddy! and you're a vicar.'
'Or if "a man desires the office of a bishop," Meg.'
'But do you, father?' I asked gravely, 'for if you don't you haven't got a leg to stand on, and I——'
'No, I don't desire the office of a bishop, Meg; I don't want to do anything different from what I am doing now. I don't, I don't.'
'Why, father,' I exclaimed, 'does anybody want you to?'
'I loathe natives,' he replied, and went out of the room hurriedly.
Sometimes I don't understand my father; he says things that don't seem to have the slightest bearing on the subject under discussion.
When Ross came home in the summer for the holidays he was bigger than ever. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him in his place. He seemed to think he could go straight on from that moment when he went seven feet high and said, 'There, darling.' He actually had the cheek to say, 'Because I don't choose' to me once, and we had words about it!
Aunt Amelia invited herself to stay for six weeks while he was home. Relations were slightly strained all the time and when she said to father in front of Ross, 'I hope Meg has been quite steady since.' I really thought they were both going to blow up, but we escaped with a slammed door and father's threat to go into lodgings.
Ross calmed down later in the day and observed that 'It was a quaint family, all cracked on something: Aunt Amelia on Calvinism, Uncle Jasper on Archæology, Cousin Emily on animals, and you,' he added rudely, 'on—er bluebells.'