nsibility, Benjamin, and your sister
Annie abets you in evading it," said Silas Hempstead with dignity.

"Benny feels the heat," said Annie.

"Father is entirely right," said Eliza. "Benjamin has no sense of
responsibility, and it is mainly owing to Annie."

"But dear Annie does not realize it," said Jane.

Benny got up lumberingly and left the room. He loved his sister Annie,
but he hated the mild simmer of feminine rancor to which even his
father's presence failed to add a masculine flavor. Benny was always
leaving the room and allowing his sisters "to fight it out."

Just after he left there was a tremendous peal of thunder and a blue
flash, and they all prayed again, except Annie; who was occupied with
her own perplexities of life, and not at all afraid. She wondered, as
she had wondered many times before, if she could possibly be in the
wrong, if she were spoiling Benny, if she said and did things without
knowing that she did so, or the contrary. Then suddenly she tightened
her mouth. She knew. This sweet-tempered, anxious-to-please Annie was
entirely sane, she had unusual self-poise. She KNEW that she knew
what she did and said, and what she did not do or say, and a strange
comprehension of her family overwhelmed her. Her sisters were truthful;
she would not admit anything else, even to herself; but they confused
desires and impulses with accomplishment. They had done so all their
lives, some of them from intense egotism, some possibly from slight
twists in their mental organisms. As for her father, he had simply
rather a weak character, and was swayed by the majority. Annie, as she
sat there among the praying group, made the same excuse for her sisters
that they made for her. "They don't realize it," she said to herself.

When the storm finally ceased she hurried upstairs and opened the
windows, letting in the rain-fresh air. Then she got supper, while her
sisters resumed their needlework. A curious conviction seized her, as
she was hurrying about the kitchen, that in all probability some, if
not all, of her sisters considered that they were getting the supper.
Possibly Jane had reflected that she ought to get supper, then she
had taken another stitch in her work and had not known fairly that her
impulse of duty had not been carried out. Imogen, presumably, was sewing
with the serene consciousness that, since she was herself, it followed
as a matter of course that she was performing all the tasks of the
hou