‘Very,’ echoed Roger. ‘Why can’t people stand on their own legs, _as_ their own legs, and not be always deprecating the fact that they are not just the same shape as the legs of other people? Well!’ ‘It was not long before Miss Askam presented herself, at an hour when they were all in, and in five minutes she’d made friends with every one of them, from the biggest to the least. So now she’s a friend of the family, and her name a household word, like yours, Mike.’ ‘Isn’t it rather odd that she should chum so with the Johnsons?’ asked Roger, going fully into the question. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think she finds it congenial. She’s always welcome, and she knows it. And there’s another thing,—she is a woman of the right sort.’ ‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ asked Roger, while Michael sat silent. ‘Well, it would take a good while to explain all I mean by that. But when you come across such a woman, you know her quickly for what she is, or I’m sorry for you if you don’t; you ain’t up to much. The right sort of woman, when she has griefs and sorrows of her own—and that young thing has, unless her sad eyes are very misleading—does not seek her distractions where the wrong sort of woman does. I don’t mean that she shuts herself up like a nun—that’s no good; but she does seem to fly to charity, by which I don’t mean carrying round tracts and soup-tickets; she flies to charity, I say, as a duck takes to water. I don’t know that she is always so anxious to _forget_ her troubles—the right sort of woman. You can’t forget a constant pain; you couldn’t forget chronic neuralgia if you had that blessing given you; but she does find a right use for them—the use they were intended for by Him who sent them to her,’ said the little doctor, lowering his voice; ‘and she best alleviates her own griefs by helping others out of theirs. I’m convinced that Miss Askam is such a woman. She’s sad—very sad—she is, for all her riches and all her beauty; and—Michael, what must you be rattling that blind down for, just when I’m talking? It’s your own garden outside. You can’t be overlooked, if that is what you are afraid of.’ ‘I beg your pardon. Well, what next?’ said Michael, with an immense effort, sitting down again, and trying to look tranquil. One would almost have said that the worthy doctor’s eulogiums bored him. ‘I daresay you are right,’ said Roger. ‘Anyhow, if she finds a need for friends of that sort, to whom she can be a help, I am glad she has found out the Johnsons; for they can do with a few, “of the right sort,” as you say.’ ‘I can’t tell you how much I liked her,’ said Dr. Rowntree, beaming contentedly. ‘There was only one thing that Mrs. Johnson said, that went a little against the grain with me.’ ‘While you were settling about the Christmas-tree, I suppose?’ said Roger, politely. ‘That man from London, saving your presence, Michael, is staying at Thorsgarth now. He called with her one morning when she came to the Vicarage——’