can?
`So mean-brained a thing as a woman to know as much as any man!' I
grant you, he shall not say such words: but he shall say words that mean
it. And then, forsooth, he shall reckon he hath paid me a compliment!
I trow no woman should have brains as dull as that. And do tell me,
belike, why a man that can talk right good sense to his fellows, shall
no sooner turn him around to a woman, than he shall begin to chatter the
veriest nonsense? It doth seem me, that a man never thinks of any woman
but the lowest quality. He counts her loving, if you will; but alway
foolish, frothy, witless. He'll take every one of you for that make of
woman, till he find the contrary. Oh, these men! these men!"

"Ah!" saith _Father_. "I feel myself one of the inferior sex."

"_Aubrey_, what business hast thou hearkening?" quoth she. "I thought
thou wert lost in yonder big book."

"I found myself again, some minutes gone," saith _Father_. "But thou
wist, 'tis an old saw that listeners do never hear any good of
themselves."

"I didn't mean thee, man!" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Present company always
excepted."

"Methought I was reckoned absent company," saith _Father_, with a
twinkle in his eyes, and lifting his big book from the table. "Howbeit,
I am not too proud to learn."

"Even from a woman?" quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "Thou art the pearl of men, if
so be."

_Father_ laughed, and carried off his book, pausing at the door to
observe--"There is some truth in much thou hast said, _Joyce_."

"Lack-a-day, what an acknowledgment from a man!" cries Aunt _Joyce_.
"Yet 'tis fenced round, look you. `There is _some_ truth in _much_' I
have said. Ah, go thy ways, my good _Aubrey_; thou art the best man
ever I knew: but, alack! thou art a man, after all."

"Why, Aunt _Joyce_," saith _Edith_, who was laughing rarely, "what
should we do, think you, if there were no men?"

"I would do some way, thou shouldst see," saith Aunt _Joyce_, sturdily.

And so she let the matter drop; or should so have done, but _Nell_
saith--

"I reckon we all, both men and women, have in us a touch of our father,
old _Adam_!"

"And our mother, old _Eva_," said I.

"You say well, childre," quoth Aunt _Joyce_: "and she that hath the
biggest touch of any I know is a certain old woman of _Oxfordshire_, by
name _Joyce Morrell_."

Up springeth _Edith_, and giveth Aunt _Joyce_ a great hug.

"She is the best, sweetest, dearest old woman (if so be) ever I knew,"