Even Annie, woman-like, could more readily forgive all his faults than a display of that weakness which is most despised in a man. But she too was sufficiently familiar with the world not to be repelled or shocked by a life which, compared with all true, noble standards, was sadly lacking. And yet she was the very last one to be dazzled by a fast, brilliant man of the world. She had been too well educated for that, and had been early taught to distinguish between solid worth and mere tinsel. Her native powers of observation were strong, and her father, and mother also before she died, had given her opportunities for exercising them. Instead of mere assertions as to what was right and wrong and general lecturing on the subject, they had aimed to show her right and wrong embodied in human lives. They made her feel that God wanted her to do right for the same reason that they did, because He loved her. First in Bible narrative told in bedtime stories, then in history and biography, and finally in the experience of those around them, she had been shown the happy contrast of good, God-pleasing life with that which is selfish and wicked. So thorough and practical had been the teaching in this respect, and so impressed was she by the lesson, that she would as soon have planted in her flower-bed the seeds of tender annuals on the eve of autumn frosts, and expected bloom in chill December, as to enter upon a course that God frowns upon, and look for happiness. Her father often said, "A human being opposing God's will is like a ship beating against wind and tide to certain wreck." An evil life appeared therefore to her a moral madness, under the malign influence of which people were like the mentally deranged who with strange perversity hate their best friends and cunningly watch for chances of self-destruction. While on one hand she shrunk from them with something of the repulsion which many feel toward the unsound in mind, on the other she cherished the deepest pity for them. Knowing how full a remedy ever exists in Him whose word and touch removed humanity's most desperate ills, it was her constant wish and effort to lead as many as possible to this Divine Friend. If she had been like many sincere but selfish religionists, she would have said of Gregory, "He is not congenial. We have nothing in common," and, wrapped in her own spiritual pleasures and pursuits, would have shunned, ignored, and forgotten him. But she chiefly saw his pressing need of help, and said to herself, "If I would be like my Master, I must help him."