"No, no; let me hear!"
"You are the eldest; your example, is followed by the seven brothers; your influence with them is great; you give an 'eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' Jessie and the others may have a foundation for their ill-will. You have never endeavoured to discover what this is. Your pride took offence, and you say to yourself that can never bend. Was this right?"
Her voice trembled, her head drooped, and in spite of her self-command, she burst into tears.
"Fannie! sister Fannie!"
"Don't mind me; I am weak, nervous, foolish. I shall soon be better; but it makes me so very unhappy to see you all at enmity. I had hoped, when I came among you, to have been the olive branch, but—"
"Fannie! dear sister Fannie!" he exclaimed, walking up and down the room, "you have been—we are fire-brands plucked from the burning. You have said all that any one could have said; yes, and done all that could be done; never repeated any malicious speech, selected all the wheat that could be culled from the chaff. You have softened my obdurate heart. I have done wrong; you have shown me to the way of return. If Jessie will come forward and forgive and forget, then will I."
But Fannie knew that it was not so easy to make Jessie be the first to own her errors and forgive. The brothers had done much to make the division wider, in the way of hints and malicious whisperings; and she continued weeping so wildly and hysterically, that the elder brother endeavoured to console her, and was glad when Harwood came, and lifting her in his arms, carried her up to her room.
When he returned, the elder brother still stood by the fire-place.
He turned and spoke.
"Fannie is very fragile and pale. Is she not well?"
"Not very. This family feud troubles her. She has taken it to heart. When we were first married, she told me a dozen plans she had made for your reunion, and made me a party to them, but now—"