“Oh, you are a teaze!” exclaimed Eva, jumping down. “I don’t believe it’s anything alive at all. But it’s high time we pursued our ‘winding way.’ Which direction are you going to take, Hu?”
“I propose doing myself the honour to constitute myself your protector,” returned Hubert, with mock ceremony, “in case you should have rough work with any ‘animated posts’ by the way.”
Mabel and Merry inwardly objected to this arrangement, fearful of Hubert’s sarcastic mood. They could see that he despised their littleness, and they were both dreadfully uncomfortable. But it was too late to go round by the road after delaying so long, so there was no help, and the four went up the field together, Hubert teasing rather unmercifully all the way, until their path divided, when he drew from his pocket and exhibited two insignificant-looking eggs, which he had secured for his collection.
“What’s the matter with Cissy Weller?” he asked, as he walked on with Eva, after calling a parting injunction to the other girls to fight shy of “animated posts.”
“Oh. Cissy is always getting into hot water with the girls,” explained Eva; “through sheer blundering, you know, for she’s a good creature at heart; only she has always had a governess at home, and doesn’t understand the ways of school life, some of which are decidedly unchristian, to my thinking,” added Eva, confidentially. “Then the girls get regularly mad, and do all they can to lash her into a fury. But it is of no use, as they said just now; Cissy never answers back, and it generally ends in her getting sent to Coventry. Poor Cissy! that hurts her more than anything, I believe; she looks so miserable over it. And the strange part of the whole thing is, that if she were to ‘show spirit,’ one or two battles would settle the matter, and they would learn to ‘respect’ her. Hubert, if hot words can do so much, why is silence ‘golden?’”
“Because, in scriptural phrase, angry words ‘stir up strife,’” replied Hubert.
“Why weren’t we all ‘born dumb,’ then?” quoted Eva. “Oh, Hubert, I do wish I could answer them when they say things like that! You could silence them in a minute; but my thoughts travel so slowly. I know it is more Christian not to retort; but I ought to be able to give a reason for what I believe, when other people say such odd things. After all, what use is there in having tongues, if we mayn’t use them in self-defence?”
“In order that we may use them for a better purpose,” answered Hubert, after a few minutes’ reflection. “I thought you had floored me, but I see it now. ‘Speech is silvern,’ and ‘silence is golden;’ but ‘a soft answer turneth away wrath.’ Although Cissy might gain apparent victories by retorting, she would in reality only draw upon herself greater antagonism, whilst, on the other hand, her silence both irritates them and makes them think her craven-spirited. If she were great enough to show her superiority by explaining, or apologising for her blunders, she would very soon put to rout all their hostility and win their hearts: that is, unless girls are made of very different stuff from boys. But this sort of greatness is only to be arrived at in one way,” he added, gravely. “Perhaps you could help her to find out how.”
Eva understood her brother’s meaning, for they often had these confidential talks on serious subjects.
“‘Take my yoke upon you and learn of me,’” she repeated, softly. “I had not thought of trying to help her.”