This sobered him. 'I'll try,' said my uncle; and it was quite hard not to laugh at the change in our positions--I the grey-beard now, the wise rebuker, he the hot-headed yet well-intentioned young relative. _October 11th._ I think guests ought to like each other; love each other if they prefer it, but at least like. They too have their duties, and one of them is to resist nourishing aversions; or, if owing to their implacable dispositions they can't help nourishing them, oughtn't they to try very hard not to show it? They should consider the helpless position of the hostess, she who, at any rate theoretically, is bound to be equally attached to them all. Before my uncle came it is true we had begun to fester, but we festered nicely. Mrs. Barnes and I did it with every mark of consideration and politeness. We were ladies. Uncle Rudolph is no lady; and this little house, which I daresay looks a picture of peace from outside with the snow falling on its roof and the firelight shining in its windows, seethes with elemental passions. Fear, love, anger--they all dwell in it now, all brought into it by him, all coming out of the mixture, so innocuous one would think, so likely, one would think, to produce only the fruits of the spirit,--the mixture of two widows and one clergyman. Wonderful how much can be accomplished with small means. Also, most wonderful the centuries that seem to separate me from those July days when I lay innocently on the grass watching the clouds pass over the blue of the delphinium tops, before ever I had set eyes on Mrs. Barnes and Dolly, and while Uncle Rudolph, far away at home and not even beginning to think of a passport, was being normal in his Deanery. He has, I am sure, done what he promised and tried to be kinder to Mrs. Barnes, and I can only conclude he was not able to manage it, for I see no difference. He glowers and glowers, and she immovably knits. And in spite of the silence that reigns except when, for a desperate moment, I make an effort to be amusing, there is a curious feeling that we are really living in a state of muffled uproar, in a constant condition of barely suppressed brawl. I feel as though the least thing, the least touch, even somebody coughing, and the house will blow up. I catch myself walking carefully across the hall so as not to shake it, not to knock against the furniture. How secure, how peaceful, of what a great and splendid simplicity do those July days, those pre-guest days, seem now! _October 12th._ I went into Dolly's bedroom last night, crept in on tiptoe because there is a door leading from it into Mrs. Barnes's room, caught hold firmly of her wrist, and led her, without saying a word and taking infinite care to move quietly, into my bedroom. Then, having shut her in, I said, 'What are you going to do about it?' She didn't pretend not to understand. The candour of Dolly's brow is an exact reflection of the candour of her mind.