But then, you see, he was a simple sort of young man, and never thought, or at least said, any evil of anybody.
Then he suggested that we would walk home together, and though I had meant to stay at the cottage all day, I actually went. But I soon got him into a hot argument with my father (who could argue the handle off the village pump) about doctrine and sacraments, and things that a boy has to learn about in school till he hates the very name of them. At least, if he has a master like old Mr. Mustard. Then I up and shinned out of the back door as quick as I could, lest father should ask me where I was going, and send me kiting all over the country with one of our delivery vans. I found Elsie looking out of the window and very pensive.
So I told her to her face that she was thinking of that curly-headed curate, and she answered me (as, of course, she would naturally do) that whether she was or wasn't, it was no business of mine.
Then I vowed I would make it my business.
"Then make it!" says she, and turned away very haughty and went and sulked in Nancy's little room, which was off the big kitchen. It was as much as I could do to keep from turning on my heel and walking away, never more to return. But I knew that it was wrong to yield to passion. So I was noble and stopped where I was.
Instead I began to sweep up the cinders about the grate and get everything ready for tea, even to scouring the teapot and things. I used coarse, common powder, and this I moistened by a coarse and familiar method. The act brought Elsie out promptly. Just bounding she was. Mad was no name for it. She called me all the names she could think of, but she didn't sulk any more. I thought she wouldn't. That always fetches her. She knows I do it a-purpose to make her angry, but she can't help it—not one time in a thousand. Elsie is built that way, and from what I have seen quite a lot of women are.
It works far better than taffying up to them, or doing the dreadful humble. Get them spitting mad, and they will love you ever after, or at least for quite a while.