father frowned, and said: 'Let her alone. It will do her no harm; she
won't understand it.' I asked if I might finish it, and he said, 'Oh,
yes,' impatiently. I think he wanted to get rid of me, and I am sorry I
interrupted him at an inconvenient time. Mother often does not agree with
father, but she always gives in. Very often she is right, however, and he
is wrong. Last week she did not want us to go out one day because she was
sure it would rain, but he did not think so, and said we had better go It
did rain--poured--and we got wet through and have had colds ever since,
but when we came in mother scolded me for saying, 'You see, you were
right,' She said I should be saying 'I told yon so!' next, in a nasty
jeering way as the boys do, which really means rejoicing because somebody
else is wrong, and is not generous. I hope I shall never come to that; but
I know if I am ever sure of a thing being right which somebody else thinks
is wrong, it won't matter what it is or who it is, I shall not give in. I
don't see how I could."

Her pen seldom ran away with her into personal matters like these, in the
early part of the book; but from the first she was apt to be beguiled
occasionally by the pleasure of perceiving a powerful stimulant under the
influence of which everything is lost sight of but the point perceived.
She had never to fight a daily and exhausting battle for her private
opinions as talkative people have, simply because she rarely if ever
expressed an opinion; but her father stood ready always, a post of
resistance to innovation, upon which she could sharpen the claws of her
conclusion silently whenever they required it.

When next she mentions "The Vicar of Wakefield," she says expressly:

"I do not remember what I wrote about it the first time I read it, and I
will not look to see until I have written what I think now, because I