“I would give anything to see poor Cinthy real happy again like she was that night. I used to be too strict with the child, I know, and I’ve repented it now. How happy she might have been if she’d had such a mother as Mrs. Varian, who would have spoiled and petted her as mothers do, and made her life so bright. I tell you, Everard, she is a good woman in spite of her pride. Our minister says she is so good to the poor, and, besides, she has given a thousand dollars to repair the church. He told me he did not believe she was so proud and exclusive as some people thought. He had called on her once, and she was very kind and sweet in a way, but there was something rather sad in her manner, or cynical, maybe, as if she had some trouble and was not resigned to it.” Would she never get done talking on this (to her) most interesting subject? Everard Dawn yawned impatiently, and answered thoughtlessly: “Yes, she was always like that, generous to a fault, noble at heart, charming, but jealous, passionate, unreasonable.” “Why, Everard, did you know her some time?” she exclaimed. “I know a nun who did,” he answered curtly, getting up from his seat, and adding: “Rebecca, it is about sunset, and I will take a walk and a smoke before our early tea.” Donning great-coat and hat, he hurried out-of-doors, thinking: “If I had not got away from her chatter of Pauline Varian, I should have screamed out aloud like a nervous woman, I verily believe.” He walked away in the dying glow of the rosy sunset toward the little town, passing Idlewild, as he did daily, and watched by eyes of which he little recked, for he was too proud to glance toward her windows. Every day, with an angry pain, she had seen him pass and she thanked fate there would be but one day more of it, for the maid was well again now, though why she should have watched him when she need not, no man could have told, since the sex is rather obtuse on feminine caprices. Why need she follow him with such straining gaze, she, the proud, wealthy Mrs. Varian, admired of men, envied of women, no less for her charms than her gifts of fortune? She had everything life could give but happiness. He--and she knew it--was but a poor lawyer, too careless of fortune to woo her successfully, too weary of life to find pleasure in it; not quite so blue-blooded as the Varians, either, yet not a man to look down on, for nature at least had been lavish of brains and beauty and stubborn pride, not to mention an unenviable capacity for suffering stolidly borne. In her heart she believed him weak and unstable and scorned him accordingly; but as for him, he understood her better than she did herself, yet never relaxed his resentment over a cruel wrong, never contemplated forgiveness, even if she should pray for it. Watching her carriage yesterday, as it dashed past the steps where he had stood, he had recalled with grim pain some fitting words: