'I meant Cardie,' replied Olive, mildly, too much used to Chriss's oddities to be repulsed by them. 'You have no idea how much he misses her and all her nice quiet ways.'
Chriss stopped her ears decidedly.
'I don't want to hear anything about Aunt Milly; you and Richard made her a sort of golden image. It is very unkind of you, Olive, to speak about her now, when you know how horrid and disagreeable and cross and altogether abominable I have always been to her,' and here honest tears choked Chriss's utterance.
A warm thrill pervaded Olive's frame; here was another piece of work left for her to do. She must gain influence over the cross-grained warped little piece of human nature beside her; hitherto there had been small sympathy between the sisters. Olive's dreamy susceptibilities and Chriss's shrewdness had kept them apart. Chriss had always made it a point of honour to contradict Olive in everything, and never until now had she ever managed to insert the thinnest wedge between Chriss's bristling self-esteem and general pugnacity.
'Oh, Chriss,' she cried, almost tremblingly, in her eagerness to impart some consolation, 'there is not one of us who cannot blame ourselves in some way. I am sure I have not been as nice as I might have been to Aunt Milly.'
Chriss shook her shoulder pettishly.
'Dear me, that is so like you, Olive; you are the most funnily-constructed person I ever saw—all poetry and conscience. When you are not dreaming with your eyes open you are always reading yourself a homily.'
'I wish I were nice for all your sakes,' replied Olive, meekly, not in the least repudiating this personal attack.
'Oh, as to that, you are nice enough,' retorted Chriss, briskly. 'You won't come up to Aunt Milly, so it is no use trying, but all the same I mean to stick to you. I don't intend you to be quite drowned dead in your responsibilities. If you say a thing, however stupid it is, I shall think it my duty to back you up, so I warn you to be careful.'
'Dear Chriss, I am so much obliged to you,' replied Olive, with tears in her eyes.