alike. "What Miss Grey bears, I suppose I can," thought she to herself
when many times during the last two weeks she had been addressed in
a manner which somewhat surprised her, as being a mode of speech
more fitting from a school-mistress to a naughty school-girl than from a
sister to a young wife, or, indeed, from any lady to any other lady--at
least, according to her code of manners.

"You may talk as you like!" continued Miss Gascoigne, glancing at the
far end of the room, where the master was deeply busied in searching
for a book, "but I object to these morning walks; and I am certain Dr.
Grey also would object, if he knew of them."

"He does know."

"And does he approve? Impossible! Only think, Maria, if our poor
dear sister had done such a thing!"

"Oh, hush, Henrietta!" cried Maria, appealingly, as Dr. Grey came back
and sat himself placidly down at the breakfast-table, with his big book
beside him. He had apparently not heard a single word.

Yet he looked so good and sweet--yes, sweet is the only fitting word; a
gentle simplicity like a child's, which always seemed to hover round
this bookish learned man--that the womenkind were silenced--as, by a
most fortunate instinct, women generally are in presence of their
masculine relatives. They may quarrel enough among themselves, but
they seem to feel that men either will not understand it or not endure
it. That terrible habit of "talking over" by which most women "nurse
their wrath and keep it warm," is happily to men almost impossible.