Sue's voice lost its warmth, dropped into huskiness again. "You don't understand, Ann, so don't you be thinking things that isn't so." She drew Ann to the bed. "Sit down a minute till I tell you something.... It's always seemed to me foolishness to talk about things that are past, so I never told you, but now Coats is comin' you ought to know: your mother died when you were born, Ann, and it almost killed Coats. He loved your mother dearer than I've ever known any man love a woman. Every time he looked at you it brought it back to him. We went through a lot of trouble, Ann--dreadful trouble. It was too much for Coats to bear, an' he just went away from it, out west. But he wasn't forsakin' us--it wasn't like that. Why, all these years his thoughts have been here, and he's sent us money right along--we couldn't have got on if he hadn't." Sue's voice rose. "There's no better man in all the world than Coats Penniman, Ann!... And I _know_. He was your mother's own cousin and mine--we grew up with him, right here in this house--and I know like no one else does how fine Coats is!" Sue was shaken as Ann had never seen her, flushed and quivering and bright-eyed. Ann's eyes were brimming. "But I wasn't to blame." "Of course you weren't to blame," Sue said pityingly. "I'm just telling you because I want you to understand and be patient if Coats seems like a stranger. Don't you feel hard to him. Just you remember that you're a Penniman and that the Pennimans always stand together and that there never was a better Penniman walked than Coats.... Just you do your duty and be patient, Ann, and your reward will come. I've lived on that belief for many years, and whether I get my reward or not, I'll know that I've done the thing that's _right_, and that's something worth living for." Sue had struck a responsive cord when she called upon the family pride. Ann's shoulders lifted. And hope, an ineradicable part of Ann, had also lifted. She looked up at Sue. "Perhaps father will get to love me," she said wistfully. Sue drew an uneven breath. Then she said steadily, "Perhaps he will, Ann.... Just you do right, like I tell you--that's your part." She got up then. "We won't talk any more now--I've got too much to do. An' there's something I want you should do, an' that's to talk to Ben Brokaw. He says he's goin'. He's sitting down in the basement glum as a bear. When your grandpa tol' him Coats was comin' he up an' said he'd go--there was goin' to be too many men about the place. I couldn't do anything with him. But he's got to stay--anyway till Coats gets some one else. You see if you can persuade him." "Yes, I'll try--" Ann promised absently, for she was thinking of something else. "Aunt Sue, does father hate the Westmores too?" Sue's start was perceptible. She stared at the girl. "Why are you askin'?" she demanded sharply. Ann grew crimson, and there was a touch of defiance in her answer. "You and grandpa hate them--I wondered if he did."