"Oh, you cannot tell. It may change her entirely."
"How does she seem affected by the baby's death?"
"Why, really, John, it seems a hard thing to say, and I would not say it to any one but you, but really Agnes seems to me to think more of her mourning-dress than any thing else. She talked, all the time I was there, about whether she ought to put on crape for so young a child; but concluded by saying that, as there had been two deaths in the family, it would not be out of the way. She gave me quite a lecture about wearing my old coloured calico in the morning, and, as I said, was very superior and condescending. She seems to think, somehow, that she has a great deal to forgive me for:—indeed, she said that if I had not been sick and in trouble, she could not have overlooked my conduct."
"Conduct in what?" asked John.
"I don't know. I suppose, in not going there while the baby was sick."
"A good many women would never have spoken to her again, after what she did," said John. "I confess I find it a good deal easier to forgive her when I don't see her than when I do."
"I shall always feel that she was very much to blame," said Letty. "I hope I have forgiven her; but I never can justify her conduct. The best way is not to think of the matter more than one can help. I told her I thought there was a good deal to forgive on the other side; but she could not see what. I do not think she has the least idea that she has been to blame; and she seems to consider that our trial is nothing to hers. She says I do not feel things as she does, and that—But there is no use in repeating what she says. The simple truth is that Agnes and I do not suit each other. We have different ideas and feelings,—different ways of looking at every thing. I sometimes think we should have been better friends if we lived farther apart."
"It may be so. I have sometimes thought that it was not altogether a good thing for married relations to be settled too near each other. You remember John Burns and his brother-in-law? They were very good friends so long as they lived at opposite ends of the town; but by-and-by they took a fancy to build houses on the same lot, and after that there was no more peace. The families were always in hot water."
"I think it depends a good deal upon the relations," remarked Letty. "You do not think we should ever have quarrelled with Aunt Eunice, do you,—even if we had lived under the same roof?"
"No, probably not; nor will we quarrel with Agnes. If we must come to that, we will simply let her alone. I am glad to hear you say that you forgive Agnes."