As you told me not to hurry, I have taken a little time to think about your letter. Of course it would be very disagreeable to quarrel with papa and mamma and everybody. And if I do do so, I'm sure somebody ought to be very grateful. But papa has been very unfair in what he has said. As to not asking him, it could have been of no good, for of course he would be against it. He thinks a great deal of the Longestaffe family, and so, I suppose, ought I. But the world does change so quick that one doesn't think of anything now as one used to do. Anyway, I don't feel that I'm bound to do what papa tells me just because he says it. Though I'm not quite so old as you seem to think, I'm old enough to judge for myself,--and I mean to do so. You say very little about affection, but I suppose I am to take all that for granted.

As you told me not to hurry, I have taken a little time to think about your letter. Of course it would be very disagreeable to quarrel with papa and mamma and everybody. And if I do so, I'm sure somebody ought to be very grateful. But papa has been very unfair. He thinks a great deal of the Longestaffe family, and so, I suppose, ought I. But the world does change so quick that one doesn't think of anything now as one used to do. Anyway, I don't feel that I'm bound to do what papa tells me just because he says it. Though I'm not quite so old as you seem to think, I'm old enough to judge for myself, and I mean to do so. You say very little about affection, but I suppose I am to take all that for granted.
