"I know the class they represent," explained the minister, not without impatience, for he did not like to be argued with by a child.
"If they are uncultivated I should think a good way to keep them so would be for cultivated people to avoid knowing them," Gay said, slowly.
"I fear you are a hopeless radical, Miss May," the minister said with a desire to bring the conversation to an end.
"Radical" was a new word to Gay, but he grasped its meaning after a moment's thought. "I am afraid I am," said he, "if radical means somebody who thinks one person should be treated as well as another."
CHAPTER XXI
THE SKY BRIGHTENS
The General must have thought his housekeeper too valuable to lose, for May was neither placed under lock and key nor condemned to prison fare of bread and water. In one way this order of severity would have been easier to bear than daily meetings with the silent General. Only a child of coarse calibre can stand out against the silent condemnation of an elder; to May, who had lived in an atmosphere of sunshine, the General's demeanor was well-nigh unbearable. Confession trembled on her lips more than once, but was repressed.
"What good will it do to tell?" she argued with herself. "Uncle Harold will not believe what I say until something happens to change his opinion of me."
The last accusation, that of sowing the seeds of tobacco-using, did not trouble May greatly. That would be easily disposed of when it was known that she was a girl; no one, then, would believe that she had given a boy tobacco. But a girl might fire a heap of hay and tell a fib about it afterwards, both acts being within a girl's province of wickedness. And if Philip never told, and if her uncle continued to disbelieve her, might not everybody, Gay, father, mother, all, believe her guilty? This thought brought May to the verge of despair.