“My dear Mistress Elinor Butler,” she exclaimed, “you have quite hit the nail on the head. That is the very test of courage I have always been setting them, but they don’t seem to understand. Why should they be afraid of a stick? I’m not going to murder them. Suppose I should threaten to strike you with this stick. What would you do?”
“If I had the strength, I should break it in two; if not, I should throw it as far as I could send it.”
“And you would be quite right to do either. I have respect only for those who stand up for their rights. If my sticks were loaded, if they were pistols or rifles, there might be some excuse. They are merely harmless splinters of wood. And yet, I assure you, not a member of my household, either servants or grandchildren, has ever found it out. There is no more harm in them than there was in the Queen of Hearts who cried, ‘Off with his head,’ every other moment and never beheaded anyone. But I have only to raise one of these bits of sticks and shake it in the air and they are all at my feet. It is very monotonous.”
“Why don’t you tell them so?” asked Elinor. “Perhaps poor Georgiana would be happier and so would the others, if they knew it was all a—a bluff.”
“Oh, child; that is the point. That is the test. A coward is always a coward until he proves his own courage, and these grandchildren of mine are cowards, worthless, characterless cowards. If Georgiana were only like you or your friend who saved the young man in bathing—what’s her name? But she is not. She is a spiritless little creature.”
“You mean you would like her better if she wouldn’t allow you to—to go on so?” hesitated Elinor, hardly knowing what name to call the old lady’s fits of rages.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see her stand up for herself. But it is not in her. It is a pity some good red American blood could not be injected into her veins.”
“Oh,” broke in Elinor, “but I thought you didn’t like American girls. I once heard you say you thought they were too bold.”
The old lady looked at her with a shrewd smile.