"His sisters, for instance. He doesn't look a bit like them, really--nasty bugs, godless, gutless pigs--but yet he brings them up before me. Idell rather more than Cora, and Idell was the meanest of the two, and her husband the miserablest, sneakingest cuss. Oh, how I hate the bunch of them! And I oughtn't, you know. You oughtn't to go on hating your enemies after you've got the better of them. But the moment I think of that trio, Cora Bewick--sour-bellied old maid!--and Idell Friebus, and her rotten little pea-green husband--pin-headed insect! flap-eared fool!--I get mad. If you could really know, Hat, the cold-heartedness and wicked-mindedness of those people! How they ever happened in Tom's family Goodness only knows. And such a fine father! The Judge was as good as any of those old fellows in the Bible, I do believe. _That_ patient, _that_ considerate, and _that_ just! More than just; what he did was more than just, and those girls of his simply couldn't stand it. They couldn't stand it, after they had neglected him all through his illness so that it was a scandal, that he should treat the person who had done their daughters' duty for them the same as he treated them, no better and no worse, but just the same. The things those people did to me, Hat, the things they said about me--" "I know, I know; you've told me," said Hattie, soothingly and deterringly. "The things those people did to me, and the things they said about me,"--Nell, not to be deterred, repeated intensely,--"if I'd ever wanted to give up my share, those things they did and said would have made me hold on like grim death just to spite them. Oh,"--she broke off, and flung her finished braids back over her shoulders,--"why do I let myself think of them? I grow so hot! It's the sight of Tom that has started me back to thinking of all that excitement and disgustingness. Dear good Tom, who stood by me like a trump! I do wish, Hat, I didn't hate so hard when I hate. We've taken pride in my family, I'm afraid, in being good haters, as if it were part of the same trait that makes you loyal and true to your friends. But perhaps it's a mistake. I know that Gerald said once"--she yielded to the obscure desire to hear the air vibrate, as it had not done for some time, with the syllables of his name--"Gerald said once, when we were talking of things, 'We must forgive everything,' he said; 'we must forgive happenings the same as we must people.' And Gerald, you know, when he's in sober earnest, has some good ideas." "Talking about Gerald," Estelle came in quickly, glad of a change from the other subject, "did Livvy tell you that our cook met Giovanna at the market, and Giovanna told her that her master was doing finely; that he hadn't yet been out of doors, but that he sat at the open window in the sunshine? I'd been meaning to ask you."