'What else should make her give him a snub like this ?' Mrs.Thornburgh looked at him again with exasperation.

Then a curious expression stole into her eyes.
'Oh, the Lord only knows!' she said, with a hasty freedom of speech which left the vicar feeling decidedly uncomfortable, as she shut the door after her.
However, if the Higher Powers alone knew, Mrs.Thornburgh was convinced that she could make a very shrewd guess at the causes of Catherine's behavior.

In her opinion it was all pure 'cussedness.' Catherine Leyburn had always conducted her life on principles entirely different from those of other people.

Mrs.Thornburgh wholly denied, as she sat bridling by herself, that it was a Christian necessity to make yourself and other people uncomfortable.

'Yet this was what this perverse young woman was always doing.