"Yes," she prompted him quietly.
He stared at her frowning. "Am I the least like them?" he inquired with a faint trepidation in his voice.
"Not yet, perhaps; but you will be," she said.
"But they aren't like each other," he remonstrated. "Which of them shall I be like if I stay long enough, Uncle Joe, or Mr Turner, or Hubert ...?"
"Aren't they all rather alike in one way?" she asked.
He saw at once that they were; that there was some characteristic common to every one of them, even Miss Kenyon. Seen as individuals they were as different from each other as are the ears of wheat in a cornfield, but they all bowed the same way to the prevailing wind. In their attitude towards the head of the house they could all be relied upon to present the same face.
"But you've been here fourteen years," he said, "and you're still different. Or do you think it takes longer than that to get assimilated?"
"I'm not different," she replied. "Or I shouldn't be here still."
"Of course, I don't know you," he said. "I've hardly seen you since the first three or four days I was here. But—well—I can't agree with you about that."