“You wretch,” is quite a term of endearment from some people, for example; and “how mean of her to tell you,” does not sound very severe from laughing lips.
“Clara said it was very mean of you to say anything to Maria about the way she spoilt that dress of hers,” says the tale-bearer (and tale-bearers do not generally understand a joke, but take all they hear au grand sérieux). Harriet is vexed, for she thought Clara considered the spoilt dress quite a laughing matter, and would not betray her friend’s confidence for the world; still, it is not worth while to make a fuss about it, but she can’t forget it, and the next time she and Clara have a “difference” it comes out.
“You told Maria that I was mean and didn’t keep your secrets,” says Harriet.
“I did not do any such thing,” cries Clara, who has forgotten all about her careless speech, and to whom the spoilt dress had never seemed a secret.
“Well, somebody heard you.”
“Nobody could have heard what I did not say.”
“You must have said it, or it would not have been heard,” etc., etc.
And even if the two make it up now there remains a feeling of distrust of each other which is almost sure to ripen into alienation.
Misunderstandings may also be occasioned by a letter so heedlessly worded that it makes a misrepresentation.
If such a statement as that the body of the late Prince Leopold was to be “burned” at Frogmore can pass the proof-readers and appear, as it did, in a public paper, it is not much wonder if girls, in their hasty, thoughtless letters to one another, often say things quite as untrue without the smallest intention of misleading. Girls do not always write their meaning very clearly (nor other people either, for that matter), and even the omission of a comma, to say nothing of a “not” or a “sometimes,” may make all the difference in the world to a sentence.