“Of course I did. We had pork gravy, and potatoes--oh, and fried cunners. I sat beside Joey. I believe that child is as old as She. He’s a reincarnation of some drowned ancestor who went fishing ages ago, and never came back. Did you ever notice his resemblance to a mackerel?” “I hadn’t thought of it in that light. I see now what it was. It takes you to discover it!” “Johnny’s mother looks like a cod, poor thing!” continued Helen. “I don’t wonder. I should think she would. I’m sure I should in her place.” “You are incorrigible!” said Bayard, laughing in spite of himself. “And yet--you’ve done a better morning’s work than anybody in Windover has done here for a month!” “I’m going to take tea with Johnny’s mother next week,” observed Helen--“at the Widows’ Home, you know. But I’ve promised to take Joey to the circus first.” “You are perfectly refreshing!” sighed Bayard delightedly. “Mr. Bayard,” said Helen, with a change of manner as marked yet as subtle as the motion of the wave that fell to make way for the next, against the bobbing bows of the empty dory, “I had a long talk with Job Slip.” “You say you found him sober?” “As sober as a Cesarea trustee. But the way that man feels to you is something you haven’t an idea of. I thought of that verse, you know, about love ‘passing the love of women.’ It is infatuation. It is worship. It is enough to choke you. Why, I cried when I heard him talk! And I don’t cry, you know, very often. And I’m not ashamed to own it, either. It made me feel ashamed to be alive--in such a world--why, Mr. Bayard!” Helen unclasped her hands from the back of her head, and thrust them out towards him, as if they were an argument. “Why, I thought this earth was a pleasant place! I thought life was a delightful thing!... If the rest of it is like this town--Windover is a world of woe, and you are one of the sons of God to these unhappy people!” She said this solemnly, more solemnly than he had ever heard her say anything before. He laid down his oars, and took off his hat. He could not answer, and he did not try. She saw how much moved he was, and she made a little gesture, as if she tossed something that weighed heavily, away. “You see,” she interposed, “I’ve never done this kind of thing. I’m not a good Professor’s daughter. I didn’t like it. I went through an attack of the missionary spirit when I was fifteen, and had a Sunday-school class--ten big boys; all red, and eight of them freckled. We were naming classes one Sunday, and my boys whistled ‘Yankee Doodle’ when the superintendent prayed, and then asked if they might be called the lilies of the valley. I told them they weren’t fit to be called red sorrel. So after that I gave them up. I’ve never tried it since. I’m of no more use in the world--in this _awful_ world--than the artificial pansies on my hat.” Helen picked up her straw hat from the bottom of the boat, and tied it on her head, with a little sound that was neither a laugh nor a sigh.