Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
ciples are independent of personal considerations. If they ever have the ill fortune to coincide even in appearance. . . Indeed yes! I happen to know what I am talking about. . . Forgive me if I spoke sharply; but one’s nerves are not of iron, and it is not pleasant to be charged with conspiracy by the members of one’s own family. Oh, not Spenworth! We have hardly met for years, I am thankful to say, though my husband has more than once tried to bring about a reconciliation. I have no personal animus; but, if the head of an honoured family chooses to drag his name in the mire, he shall at least not say that he has had countenance or support from even so humble a person as his sister-in-law. I was referring to the other side, my own people; I have an unforgiving little enemy, I fear, in my niece Phyllida; I should mind that less if Brackenbury and his poor wife did not seem to aid and abet her. Loyalty to the family, I should have thought. . . But, once again, I was brought up in a different school. I have told my brother, until I am tired, he ought to send her right away. It was a disappointment. . . Goodness me, it is a disappointment when one cries for the moon; and, though I thought this Colonel Butler a decent, manly fellow, he was really nobody. He saw, without my telling him, that every one
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