"
Nell's friendly speeches were sometimes hard to bear, as well as
Phyllis's unfriendly ones. Hetty would have been glad if the whole
affair could have been laid before Mrs. Enderby, and saw no reason to
congratulate herself on Phyllis's silence to her mother as to the
quarrel and its cause. But the others judged differently. Miss Davis was
pleased that by her own tact she had been able to arrange matters
without calling in the aid of Mrs. Enderby, who, she was aware, liked a
governess to have judgment and decision sufficient to keep the mistress
of the house out of school-room squabbles. Nell was delighted that
there was to be no more "fuss." Phyllis above all was pleased, for now
she felt no more necessity for questioning her own motives and conduct,
no more danger of being told by her mother that Hetty had in the
beginning been in the right, while she, by opposing her, had brought on
the wrong which had followed.
Falling back upon her own doctrine, that she must be right because her
judgment told her so, Phyllis was coldly amiable to Hetty for the rest
of the evening; while Hetty, having made her act of humility, rather
suffered from a reaction of feeling, and had to struggle hard to keep
the moral vantage-ground she had gained.
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