"Well ?" he said.
"Uncle Henry, do you think a man can tell another man's reasons for doing a queer thing better than a woman can ?" "Perhaps." "I almost know a woman could tell why a woman did a queer thing, better than a man could," said Rose, reflectively.

She hesitated a little.
Henry waited, his worn, pleasant face staring at her over a vividly colored page of the paper.
"Suppose," said Rose, "another woman had given Aunt Sylvia a box of candy which she had made herself, real nice candy, and suppose the woman who had given it to her was lovely, and you had knocked a piece of candy from Aunt Sylvia's mouth just as she was going to taste it, and had startled her so you made her drop the whole box, and then set your heel hard on the pieces; what would you have done it for ?" The girl's face wore an expression of the keenest inquiry.

Henry looked at her, wrinkling his forehead.

"If another woman had given Sylvia a box of candy she had made, and I knocked a piece from her hand just as she was going to taste it, and made her drop the whole box, and had trampled all the rest of the candy underfoot, what should I have done it for ?" he repeated.
"Yes." Henry looked at her.

He heard a door shut up-stairs.