“She bided silent a moment. Then she said, ‘Honor reckons her goose is a swan, an’ thinks that her ugly, li’l fat boy is a cherub.’ I stared at her till my eyes bulged out; I couldn’t believe my own ears. She meant it, of course; but no call for you to grow so red, my dear, she didn’t mean it a bit unkindly. ’Twas just her honest opinion that your little angel be too fat an’ too ugly for anything. ‘If you think that,’ I answered her, ‘you’d better not mention it.’” “She said my li’l boy was ugly?” “She thinks so. She’s positive of it. She’s a very honest woman, mind you. With all her many faults, she’s honest. She wouldn’t have said it if she hadn’t really believed it. She’m dead certain of it.” “My Billy ugly! Did ’e ever set eyes on a finer babby, tell me that?” “Me? I never seed such a purty child in all my life. He’m a like a li’l blue-eyed Love off a valentine. But she—” “A woman who could say my child was ugly could only say it for malice,” declared the red-haired mother, with a rising breast. “Don’t think that. Her own maidens be very homely, you see. ’Tis a little natural jealousy, be-like.” “’Tis a lie, Jane Bloom, an’ I’ll never believe she said it—never.” “You’ll be sorry for that word, Honor Haycraft. Ax her, then. Ax her if her didn’t tell me your little boy was fat an’ ugly. She’s never been catched out in a lie yet, ’tis said. See what she’ll answer you. An’ when you’ve heard her speak, I shall expect you to say you’m sorry to me. I never yet willingly uttered an unkind word against any living soul, an’ never will. If you want to live in a fool’s paradise, that’s your lookout. But it shall never be said I didn’t do my duty to my neighbour according to the Prayer Book ordinance.” With this vague but masterly speech Mrs. Bloom rose from her tea and held the cottage door open. Her guest took the hint, and in ten minutes was at home again. Then she crossed the road, and seeing Avisa Mogridge in her garden with the little girls and the infant Billy, who had been left in trust with her, Honor spoke: “Just one word, an’ only one, afore I go down to the village an’ give that old cat-a-mountain, Jane Bloom, the lie to her crooked face.” “Ah! What have she said, then?” asked the other. Mrs. Mogridge rose from pulling up weeds, and lifted her shoulders to ease her back. “She’ve told me as you told her that my child was fat an’ ugly. I answered in one word that she was a wicked liar. An’ she answered back that I’d better ax you, for you’d never been known to tell a falsehood in all your born days. Did you say it or didn’t you, Avisa? I only want your word. Then I’ll go back-along and give her what for.” Mrs. Mogridge paused with a bit of groundsel in her hand. The children frolicked beside her, and she bade them be silent, sharply. Then she dropped the groundsel and turned and spoke.