"Agreeable! That is not the point."
"It's my point."
"Ah! Well, we won't begin a wrangle, Owen; but——"
"My dear Aunt Jane! Do I ever wrangle with you?"
"You do worse. I'm afraid you are incorrigible. But every one else sees that I am right. Ask May what she thinks."
May started, and coloured violently; but she kept her eyes on the needlework in her hand, and said nothing.
"No; I shall not ask Miss Cheffington. She is a partisan, and would be sure to side with you."
"Not at all. May has her own opinions; haven't you, May?"
"One can't help having opinions," returned May shyly.
"Good gracious! Miss Cheffington, what an extraordinarily wild assertion! 'Can't help having opinions——'? One might suppose you had been nurtured among sages, and had never heard of Mr. Thomas Carlyle's celebrated majority."