“You would prefer that this big girl, then, should bear you no malice, even if you didn’t like her, and she didn’t like you. Isn’t it so?”
"Well, yes. I would like to have her stop pinchin’ and pullin’ the hairs of all o’ us little ones. That’s what I’d like, Martin."
“That’s easy done, Nelly,” said Martin in a confident tone.
“Easy, Martin? How easy?”
“Be kind to her. Show her that you bear her no ill feeling.”
“But I do bear her ill feeling, Martin! What’s the good of fibbing about it to her? I can’t go to her and say, ‘Melindy, I like you ever so much,’ when all the time I despise her like poison, can I? I am sure that wouldn’t be right.”
“No,” broke in Comfort, “that ar wouldn’t be right, Martin, for sartain.”
Martin looked a little puzzled.
“But, Comfort,” he said at length, “I don’t want her to speak pleasantly to Melindy till she feels pleasantly. That’s the thing. I wouldn’t have Nell act an untruth, a bit more than I’d have her tell one. But I do want her to try to feel like givin’ Melindy a little good for her evil.”