"In my bed," said Ann briefly.
She was less sweetly grave than her sister, and it was easy to see that her tongue was sharper. She would not have been so soothing to an invalid, but the woman under the pear-tree had her nerves better in hand by now, and felt, somehow, upon her mettle to prove to this broad, curt Ann that there were tasks in the world beyond her sturdy rule-of-thumb.
"But surely every one needs time to think—to consider," she began gently. "Don't you find it so?"
"To plan out the day, do you mean?" said Ann, moving to a new patch. "I generally do that at night before I go to sleep."
"No, no," she explained, "not the day's work—that must be done, of course—but the whole Scheme, life, and one's relation to it..."
"I don't feel any call to study that out," said Ann. "I haven't the headpiece for it."
"No, but some people have, and so——"
"Have you?" said Ann.
She bit her lip.
"It is surely every woman's duty to cultivate herself as far as she can," she began. "Nobody denies that nowadays."