"Then didn't it make her feel kindly toward Bertram?" asked Mrs. Porter. "No. She just accepted it as penance and the best restitution the poor fellow could make for a tragic and unpardonable--mind you, _unpardonable_ mistake." "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," murmured Mrs. Porter. "I know it," returned Miss Barry; "and you'll see when you read that letter that he has some forgiveness to do himself. He never mentioned Linda in it, and good enough for her. She had flouted him and refused to see him for days before he rightly sensed how deep her feeling was against him. It was at a business meeting we had that she came out flat with her suspicion and meanness. Oh, it was perfectly awful. I just have to remember and _remember_ how much provocation she would have had if all she believed was true. That poor boy nearly fainted away in his tracks, the way she spoke to him." Mrs. Porter bit her lip. She could picture the scene and her eyes filled. "He loved her so!" she said softly. "Yes, and there's that Fred Whitcomb, too: as nice a boy as ever lived. He just adores Linda; and it seems there's lots of others. I didn't believe before that I could ever get sick of arranging flowers; but really they were a pest. Linda wouldn't look at one, and I got so I passed them over to the waitress. She fixed them perfectly awful, too. They looked like crazy quilts when she got through--such colors together! Linda was a buxom, healthy girl, and good-looking enough, but for the life of me I can't see why she's such a snare." "Poor child. She shows how she has suffered, but why didn't it soften her? How could she inflict suffering at such a time? I can hardly wait to see that letter," added Mrs. Porter, unconsciously hurrying her steps. "I haven't got it. I gave it to Linda for her comfort, and hoping, too, that she'd get some punishment out of Mr. King's ignoring her. Never mentioned her name, you know." "And didn't she feel it at all?" "Not a mite." "Then I suppose, after all, she never did care anything for Bertram," mused Mrs. Porter. "It was as well, perhaps, for him that she shocked him out of his dream. As well for him--not for her, poor child, it wasn't well for her to be cruel." "I don't want to be too hard on her," said Miss Barry. "Maybe she wasn't really responsible. Land! What we went through! Well," she added, briskness coming into her voice, "that chapter's closed." "Let me," said Mrs. Porter, "let me be the one to ask Linda for the letter. You have been so tried, Miss Barry. I don't want to ask you to reopen the sorrowful chapter; but I long to see what Bertram has to say. I have always thought him an extraordinary young fellow and respected him as much as I loved him." "Just so. Just so," responded Miss Barry warmly. "All right. You ask for the letter. I pass my niece over to you now." They had reached the porch of the shingled cottage and in another minute they walked in upon Linda's presentation scene.