Then, too, it would have been a hard heart which could have steeled itself against Mary's persistent efforts to be friendly.

It was a tactful effort also, making her daily put herself in Ethelinda's place and consider everything from her view-point before speaking.

Many a time it helped her curb her active little tongue, and many a time it helped her to condone the one fault which particularly irritated her.
"Of course it is hard for her to keep her half of the room in order," she would say to herself.

"She's always had a maid to wait on her, and has never been obliged to pick up even her own stockings.

She doesn't know how to be neat, and probably I shouldn't, either, if I hadn't been so carefully trained." Then she would hang the rumpled skirts back in the wardrobe where they belonged, rescue her overturned work-basket from some garment that Ethelinda had carelessly thrown across it, and patiently straighten out the confusion of books and papers on the table they shared in common.
Although there were no more frozen silences between them their conversations were far from satisfactory.