"Well, then, look!" she cried, making them the size of billiard balls right under my nose. It was, I own, rather nice, but trying. I had a feeling that Elsie would not have liked it, really.
So I said, "Come out where a fellow can see them then!" And made as if to go out on the moor. But Harriet Caw didn't care about the moor, being a town girl, as I suppose.
"No, here—tell me now!" she said.
So as I had to say something, I told her they were the colour of brown paint.
That was true. They were, but she was quite mad, and gave my arm a fling. This surprised me, and I said—
"Why, I thought that you were the kind of girl who never cared to be told about her eyes, and stuff of that kind. You said just now about Miss Constantia's——"
"Never mind about M—iss Con-stan-ti-a's," she said, making the word as long as she could—she was mad now and patting the short, stiff heather with her little bronze boot; "attend to me, if you please. And so you think my eyes are the colour of brown paint; is that the best you can do?"
I thought a while, and she kept glaring up at me till I felt like a hen with its beak to a chalk line—I forget the word—something you are when you go on a platform and do silly things the man tells you.
So, hoping she would stop, I said at last, "Well, perhaps they are more shiny, like brown paint—varnished."
But this didn't please her either. Indeed, it was difficult to please Harriet Caw at all. She said that I was twice as stupid as a cow, and asked where I had lived all my life.