"We have been at the Sisters' house," said Ruth, shyly, breaking a strained silence. "They sent for me--to see the sewing that Sister Angela has been getting ready for Christmas Eve." William Pressley looked down at her uplifted, blushing face, and smiled, as the most self-centred and serious of men must do, when the girl who is to be his wife speaks to him of her wedding clothes. XIII SEEING WITH DIFFERENT EYES It was on the boy's account that they had their first and last serious quarrel a few hours later. This was by no means the first time that they had openly disagreed, and had come to rather sharp words. Their views of many things were too far apart for that to have been the case, but there had never before been any great or lasting trouble by reason of their difference of opinion. Ruth, gentle and yielding, was ever most timidly fearful of being at fault; William, hard and unyielding, was always perfectly certain of being in the right. It was therefore to be expected that his opinions should generally rule, and that he should construe her readiness to yield and her self-distrust, as proofs that he was not mistaken. Rock-ribbed infallibility could hardly be expected to comprehend the doubts that assail a sensitive soul. William, naturally enough, had never noted that in giving way, Ruth had not turned far or long from anything involving a principle. The truth was that she had merely evaded his intolerance of any and all difference of opinion--as a deep stream quietly flows round an immovable rock--only to turn gently back into its own course as soon as might be. And even in doing this, she had put aside only her own opinions and feelings and rights, never those of any one else. But this present dispute over David was wholly unlike any that had gone before. This concerned the boy's feelings and rights, so that she suddenly found herself forced to take a firm stand--affection, justice, and even mercy, now forbidding her to yield. Yet it was, nevertheless, just as clear to her in this as in everything else, that William sincerely thought he was right. That was the trouble. That is always the trouble with people like William Pressley, who are often harder to deal with and sometimes harder to live with, than those who knowingly do wrong.