`` Wrong . He stepped up to Prissy Strong and walked off with her . Cold soup warmed over . '' `` Prissy Strong ! '' I just held up my hands . Then I laughed . `` He need n't try for Prissy , '' I said . `` Emmeline nipped that in the bud twenty years ago , and she 'll do it again . '' `` Em ` line is an old crank , '' growled Thomas . He detested Emmeline Strong , and always did . `` She 's that , all right , '' I agreed , `` and that is just the reason she can turn poor Prissy any way she likes . You mark my words , she 'll put her foot right down on this as soon as she finds it out . '' Thomas said that I was probably right . I lay awake for a long time after I went to bed that night , thinking of Prissy and Stephen . As a general rule , I do n't concern my head about other people 's affairs , but Prissy was such a helpless creature I could n't get her off my mind . Twenty years ago Stephen Clark had tried to go with Prissy Strong . That was pretty soon after Prissy 's father had died . She and Emmeline were living alone together . Emmeline was thirty , ten years older than Prissy , and if ever there were two sisters totally different from each other in every way , those two were Emmeline and Prissy Strong . Emmeline took after her father ; she was big and dark and homely , and she was the most domineering creature that ever stepped on shoe leather .
She simply ruled poor Prissy XXXXX a rod of iron .
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