Mrs. Pinckney felt quite cross: "He is positively insolent, ordering
things about in this way, interrupting my nap and all. What, under
Heaven, should I do without her if he is in earnest about Miss
Featherstone?"
If she could have heard what Colonel Pinckney was saying in the garden she would have been still crosser.
"I want to enlighten you a little as to my fair sister-in-law," he began after a few commonplaces.
"Oh, please don't, Colonel Pinckney"—unconsciously she was sliding into the "Colonel." "I'd much rather you wouldn't. I think—" and she hesitated.
"What do you think?"
"Why"—and she looked embarrassed—"I am afraid I shall not love Mrs.
Pinckney as well if you analyze and show up all her little weaknesses.
We could none of us bear it," she continued warmly. "Remember that
line—
Be to her faults a little blind.
I like to love people, and feel like a woman in some novel I've read: 'Long and deeply let me be beguiled with regard to the infirmities of those I love.'"
"You're an angel!" he cried.
Miss Featherstone looked startled and annoyed.