Anne Douglas Sedgwick

“ Alix smiled. “Nor in a country with such fogs.”
“That's a good idea! Eh, Aunt Bella? People must see each other clearly in order to hate each other sufficiently.—What?”
“That is just it,” Alix nodded, laughing. “And you are all so kind. Kinder, I am sure, than we are.”
She and Giles understood each other. He treated her like a child, yet they understood each other, really, better than he and Aunt Bella, for she looked a little cautious when Giles embarked on his sallies, as if she did not quite know in what admission he might not involve her unless she were careful. ”

“ Alix for a moment was afraid that Aunt Bella might really be going to instruct her, and she had not the least wish to know anything about any of the respectable gentlemen who presided over the breakfast-table.
But Giles was going on, with his bantering smile. “If you go to Aunt Bella, you'll get a one-sided impression, perhaps. She's a great Liberal. We are all Liberals in my family. What you'd call Republicans.—Aunt Bella, you're not asking this helpless French child to drink tea for her breakfast!” ”

“ Now you're a Royalist, I suppose, Alix?”
“But surely no rational person in France is a Royalist any longer,” said Aunt Bella.
“Grand-père did not love the Republic,” said Alix, “but Maman admires Napoleon and the Revolution.”
“I sometimes think we shall get both a revolution and a Napoleon in this country,” said Aunt Bella, “at the rate things seem to be going.”
“There'll never be a revolution in England,” said Giles. “People who drink Indian tea could never make a revolution, could they, Alix?” ”