And the thing that Rosalie noticed was the complete difference between
these quarrels of her sisters and the quarrels between Harold and
Robert. Robert was rising between the years of fourteen and eighteen
in those days and Harold between twenty-two and twenty-six. Most
violent quarrels sometimes sprung up between them but they were
physically violent, that was the point, and after swift and appalling
fury, and terrible kicks from Robert and horrifying thumps from Harold
they were astonishingly soon over and done with and forgotten. On
one awful day, Rosalie saw Robert and Harold rolling on the floor
together. Robert bumped Harold's head three most frightful bumps
on the floor and said between his teeth, "There! There! There!"
Harold twisted himself up and hurled Robert half across the room
and then rushed at him and punched him with punches that made Robert
go, "Ur! Ur! Ur!"

Rosalie, at her age, ought to have cried with grief and dismay or
to have run away screaming; but instead she only watched with awe.
With terrified awe, as with the terrified awe that an encounter of
tigers or of elephants at the Zoo might arouse; but with awe and
no sort of grief as her sole emotion. Men were different. There it
was again! They did these fearful things, and these fearful things
were much more satisfactory to behold, not nearly so disturbing
and aggravating to watch, as the interminable bickerings of the
quarrels of her sisters.

Her brothers' quarrels were entirely different in all their aspects.
In the quarrels of her sisters, one or the other invariably cried
if the bickering went far enough. These two men, though Robert
especially might have been excused for bellowing, just solidly and
only, with fearful gasps, thumped and clutched and strove. Not a