"
Beatrice flushed, but answered her sister's attack, which was all the
sharper because it had a certain spice of truth in it.
"I never expressed any such views, Elizabeth, so I do not see why you
should attribute them to me. I only said that legal proceedings breed
bad blood in a parish, and that is true."
"I did not say you expressed them," went on the vigorous Elizabeth;
"you look them--they ooze out of your words like water from a peat bog.
Everybody knows you are a radical and a freethinker and everything else
that is bad and mad, and contrary to that state of life in which it has
pleased God to call you. The end of it will be that you will lose the
mistresship of the school--and I think it is very hard on father and me
that you should bring disgrace on us with your strange ways and immoral
views, and now you can make what you like of it."
"I wish that all radicals were like Miss Beatrice," said Geoffrey, who
was feeling exceedingly uncomfortable, with a feeble attempt at polite
jocosity. But nobody seemed to hear him. Elizabeth, who was now fairly
in a rage, a faint flush upon her pale cheeks, her light eyes all
ashine, and her thin fingers clasped, stood fronting her beautiful
sister, and breathing spite at every pore.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146