“How much nobler it would be for you to go to him, first,” replied Jessie. “According to your own showing, you are the one most to blame, even if Ronald did provoke you a little. Now I will engage, that if you go and acknowledge to him that you have done wrong, he will make ample apology to you for whatever provocation he may have given. Will you do it?”
“But I only did what I had a right to do—the snow-house was mine as much as it was his,” said Henry, evading the question.
“I have some doubts about that,” replied Jessie. “The snow-house was in Ronald’s yard, and you were his guest. I think he had the best right to it. But even if you were equal partners in the matter, you had no right to destroy it without his consent. He has rights, as well as you. Two men sometimes build a house together; but if they should get into a dispute, when it was finished, and one of them should go and set the building afire, or pull it all to pieces, I think he would have to go to the State prison, even if he did own half the property. It would be a crime. And it is just the same in your case. At most you only owned half the snow-house, and you had no right to destroy even your own half, because it would interfere with Ronald’s rights to do so.”
Henry attempted no reply to this reasoning, but still manifested an unwillingness to make any advances towards a reconciliation. Jessie then tried to persuade him to go home with her, and have an interview with Ronald, she promising to do her best to arrange matters to the satisfaction of both; but Henry resolutely refused to do this.
“I have thought of one other way to settle this quarrel,” added Jessie, after a little pause; “and that is, to refer it to two or three referees, and let them decide who is most to blame, and who shall make a first confession. Will you agree to that?”
“I don’t see any need of going to all that fuss about it—Ronald began the quarrel, and if he wants to make up, let him say so,” replied Henry.
“It is not considered a very good sign,” resumed Jessie, “when a man refuses to submit his dispute with a neighbor to two or three disinterested persons. People say he does not act in good faith. It looks as though he were neither innocent nor honest. Must I go home and tell the folks that you have done this?”
“No, I didn’t refuse, but I don’t see any use in doing it, though,” answered Henry.
“Suppose Ronald insists that you are more to blame than he, and refuses to acknowledge his error until you have confessed yours; how can you ever come to terms, unless by some such means as I have proposed? It is a very simple thing, and if you are both acting in good faith, I don’t see how you can object to it. Will you agree to it, if Ronald will?”
“Y-e-s,” replied Henry, with evident reluctance.