by which the angles of her disposition could be rounded off. If any one had told her that she stood greatly in need of this kind of discipline, she would probably have taken offence at the suggestion. But this was what was happening under the intercourse with Brenda and her friends. They all expressed themselves strongly on most points on which they had any opinion whatever,—“in italics,” Amy had said to her mother. But their views so often seemed absurd to the more logical Amy, that she at once perceived the folly of any one’s going to an extreme in expressing herself; and thus she became aware that her own way of looking at things had sometimes been a little too narrow.
When, therefore, the others plunged into a subject on which she had no very definite prejudices, she would usually take part in the discussion. She liked the sensation of finding herself moved, first by this argument, then by that. Then, for the very reason that she allowed herself to consider the question—whether it related to golf, or dress, or even some thing with a literary tinge—in a perfectly unbiassed way, she was often called upon for a final judgment in a fashion that was often very flattering. “Now, what do you think, Amy?” Brenda, or perhaps Nora would say, and Amy would give her opinion in a judicial manner that, if it did not settle the matter, at least had considerable effect on the speakers. But when the subject was one on which she had strong views, in spite of her resolution, she sometimes found it hard to keep still, or to give her opinion without occasioning offence. The isolated
