And they were like that the whole month that I
was at Endicott Beach, though it seemed to me sometimes that she was
very exacting.
Now with us, though we love one another dearly, and, as Phil says, would
go through fire and water for one another if need be, particularly if
any one were ill, still we're not willing to be imposed on _all_ the
time, and we do keep the different ones up to the mark, and stand up for
our individual rights,--we've _got_ to where there are so many. But the
Ervengs aren't in the least like us; and I think that, in some ways,
Hilliard is the very oddest boy I've _ever_ known.
To begin with, he is so literal,--away ahead of Nora; he took so many
things seriously that I said in joke that at first I didn't know what
to make of him. I used to get _so_ provoked! He doesn't understand the
sort of "chaffing" that we do so much at home, and he is slow to get an
idea; but once it's fixed in his mind, you needn't think he's going to
change,--it's there for the rest of his natural life. He could no more
change his opinion about things as I do than he could fly. Perhaps he
thinks I'm frivolous and "uncouth,"--as Nora sometimes says I am.
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