"I'd like to see anybody try it, while I'm 'round," said Sidney, with the fierceness that appears in the humblest barnyard hen when her chick is touched. "I'm all ready and a-waiting. Just let old lady Gordon so much as bat her eye and I'll give her goss. I'll tell her the Lord's truth, if she never heard it before. I'll tell her to her face that no Gordon that ever stepped ever was, or ever will be, fit to dust my Doris's shoes, so far as being good goes--or smart and good-looking either. This young Gordon is decent enough, I reckon, as young men go. And his father went pretty straight because he hadn't the spunk or the strength to go crooked. He was like a toad under a harrow, poor soul! He was so tame that he'd eat out of your hand. But even that old Hessian never harrowed or tamed the old man, who was a match for her. No-siree! Not while he had the strength to hop over a straw. Why, the whole woods were full of his wild colts." "Ah, indeed! I never knew that the old gentleman ever had any interest in horses," Miss Judy murmured absently, almost tearfully, not thinking in the least of what she was saying. "That was a long time ago," said Sidney hastily, remembering suddenly to whom she was speaking. "What the old folks were in their young days is neither here nor there. It makes no difference now. This young Gordon seems to be a fine young fellow, but, fine or coarse, all that I ask of that old Hessian, or of anybody, is to do as I do, and to let him and Doris alone, and not to meddle; just to give the two young things a fair field and no favor. And that's what she and everybody's got to do, too, or walk over Sidney Wendall's dead body." "Don't--don't," entreated Miss Judy's soft voice, coming out of the quiet darkness with a tremulous gentleness, and telling of the tender tears in her blue eyes. "Let not your heart be troubled, dear friend. All will be well with the child. All is sure to come right at last, if we are but as patient and as trusting and as true and as faithful and as loving--above all as loving--as we should be. For love _is now--as it was in the beginning, and ever shall be_--the strongest thing in the world." XXII THE UPAS TREE