“Just what Withering said;” and she read out, “'When I told him that I had come to make an _amende_ for the reception he had met with at the cottage, he stopped me at once, and said, “Great grief s are the cure of small ones, and you find me under a very heavy affliction. Tell Miss Barrington that I have no other memories of the 'Fisherman's Home' than of all her kindness towards me.”'” “Poor boy!” said Barrington, with emotion. “And how did Withering leave him?” “Still sad and suffering. Struggling too, Withering thought, between a proud attempt to conceal his grief and an ardent impulse to tell all about it 'Had _you_ been there,' he writes, 'you'd have had the whole story; but I saw that he could n't stoop to open his heart to a man.'” “Write to him, Dinah. Write and ask him down here for a couple of days.” “You forget that we are to leave this the day after tomorrow, brother.” “So I did. I forgot it completely. Well, what if he were to come for one day? What if you were to say come over and wish us good-bye?” “It is so like a man and a man's selfishness never to consider a domestic difficulty,” said she, tartly. “So long as a house has a roof over it, you fancy it may be available for hospitalities. You never take into account the carpets to be taken up, and the beds that are taken down, the plate-chest that is packed, and the cellar that is walled up. You forget, in a word, that to make that life you find so very easy, some one else must pass an existence full of cares and duties.” “There 's not a doubt of it, Dinah. There 's truth and reason in every word you 've said.” “I will write to him if you like, and say that we mean to be at home by an early day in October, and that if he is disposed to see how our woods look in autumn, we will be well pleased to have him for our guest.” “Nothing could be better. Do so, Dinah. I owe the young fellow a reparation, and I shall not have an easy conscience till I make it.” “Ah, brother Peter, if your moneyed debts had only given you one-half the torment of your moral ones, what a rich man you might have been to-day!” Long after his sister had gone away and left him, Peter Barrington continued to muse over this speech. He felt it, felt it keenly too, but in no bitterness of spirit. Like most men of a lax and easy temper, he could mete out to himself the same merciful measure he accorded to others, and be as forgiving to his own faults as to theirs. “I suppose Dinah is right, though,” said he to himself. “I never did know that sensitive irritability under debt which insures solvency. And whenever a man can laugh at a dun, he is pretty sure to be on the high-road to bankruptcy! Well, well, it is somewhat late to try and reform, but I'll do my best!” And thus comforted, he set about tying up fallen rose-trees and removing noxious insects with all his usual zeal.