The world, indeed, is too much in the habit of drawing distorted
inferences from the transient feuds that occasionally appear in domestic
life. It would be hard to find a family in which they do not sometimes
occur; and when noticed by strangers, it is both uncharitable and unjust
to conclude that there is an absence of domestic affection in the hearts
of those who, after all, prove no more than that they are subject to
the errors and passions of human nature, like their fellow creatures.
No sister, for instance, ever loved another with stronger affection than
poor Maura did her brother Felix, notwithstanding the repeated scoldings
which, for very trivial causes, he experienced at her tongue. Woe,
keen and scathing, be to those who dared, in her presence to utter an
insinuation against him.

"If she abused him, she only did it for his good, and because she loved
him; an' good right she had to love him, for a better brother never
breathed the breath of life. Wasn't he a mere boy, only one-and-twenty
years come next Lammas; and surely it stood to reason that he wanted
sometimes to be checked and scolded too. He had neither father or mother
to guide him, poor boy; and who would guide him, and advise him too, if
his own sister wouldn't do it? Only one-and-twenty, and six feet in his
shoes; but no _punhial_, no cabbage upon two pot-sticks, like some she
knew, that were ready enough to give boy a harsh word when they ought to
look nearer home, and--may-be--but she said nothing--as God forbid that
she'd make or meddle with any neighbor's character; but still, may-be,
they'd find enough to blame at home, if they'd open their eyes to their
own failings, as well as they do to the failings of their neighbors."

Another circumstance also strongly characteristic of the woman's heart,
was evinced in the high and vigorous tone she assumed towards Hugh,
whenever, in any of his dark moods, he happened to take Felix to task.