eally want the ribbon you can have it," she said
loftily. She took it from her pocket and tendered it to him.

But he made no effort to take it.

"Keep it to tie your hair again, little girl," he said; "after all,
I don't suppose it would be any use."

Meg continued her packing with burning cheeks, and he filled up his
pipe and smoked it, watching her idly the while.

"It's an odd thing," he said, more as if making an observation
than addressing her, "but the gentlest-looking women are nearly
always the hardest."

Meg opened her mouth to speak, but found nothing to say, so closed it
again and began to count Mrs. Hassal's forks for the fourth time.

"I wonder would you mind if I gave you a little advice, Miss Meg, in
return for all you have given me," he said, taking his pipe from
his mouth and looking at it as if he were trying to find out the
lettering on its nickel plate.

"Certainly not."

She laid down the bundle and looked at him with calm, surprised
eyes. "Say whatever you please, I do not mind in the very least."

He sat up and played with the handle of a strap while he spoke.

"You have brothers," he said; "some day they will go a little
astray--for it is only women like you, Miss Meg, and angels who
can keep to the path always. Don't be too hard on them. Don't
make an effort to show them the difference between your whiteness
and their blackness. They will see it right enough, but they
won't like you to draw their attention to it. Try and look gentle
and forgiving--they'll feel quite as miserable as you could wish
them to feel. The world has a beautiful frown of its own, and an
endless vocabulary of cold words--wouldn't it do if the little
sisters left it the monopoly of them?"

"Oh-h-h!" said Meg. Her cheeks were crimson, and all the dignity
had oozed out of her voice.

He buckled the strap round nothing with infinite care, and went on
again in a low tone:

"Suppose Pip did something very wrong some day, and the world flung
stones at him till he was bruised all over. And suppose feeling
very wretched, he came home to his sisters. And Meg, because
wickedness was abhorrent to her, threw a few more little stones,
so that the pain might teach him a lesson he could not forget.
And Judy, because he was her brother and in trouble, flung her arms
round him and encouraged him, and helped him to fight the world again,
and gave him never a hard word or look, thinking he had had plenty.
Which si