“I suppose you mean that it is not artistic,” said Harry. “But it isn’t the furniture that insults me; it is the people. I feel as if I were in church, or as if I had had a bucket of cold water over me when I didn’t expect it, directly I get inside the house.”
“Oh, don’t say that! They are all very kind.”
“Then you like the Vicarage people better than the Grange people?”
“I did not say that. But I know them better.”
“Oh, yes; I remember! You said we were a set of brutes.”
He felt that this was worse and worse; he was getting positively rude.
“I have never said anything of the kind, Mr. Braithwaite,” said she, coldly.
“Didn’t you tell Stephen that George and I were brutes?”
“I did say it was brutal to box your sister’s ears and knock your brother down just because they contradicted you; and I think so,” said Miss Lane, quietly.
“But it was about you. It was because they wouldn’t tell me where you were, and wouldn’t let me see you home.”