"Nothing but the people themselves keep me from doing a great deal more good in the world than I might," declared Joe. "The will is there, and I think I may say the wit is there; but my fellow creatures choke me off." "They're jealous of your sense I reckon." "No doubt some be, Lawrence. But 'tis cutting off your nose to spite your face, when you quarrel with a man who might be useful, just because you hate to think he's got a better brain than you have." "A very common thing." "Not a mistake of the wise, however. For my part I've lived long enough to see that jealousy, look at it all round, is the feeblest and silliest vice we humans suffer from. There's nothing to it but wretchedness and wasted energy. Jealous I never could be of any living creature, I assure you." But though Joe despised jealousy, such was his humour, that within an hour, for the sake of personal amusement he sought to awake the futile flame in another breast. Melinda Honeysett was waiting at Falcon Farm when the men returned, but she had come to see Lawrence Maynard, not Mr. Stockman. He, however, entertained her while his man was looking after the sheep. Indeed, he insisted on Melinda joining him in a cup of tea. He had not seen her since his return from Brixham, and now the rogue in Joe twinkled to the top and he began to enumerate the rare qualities of Miss King. He knew that Melinda regarded herself as holding a sort of proprietary right over him, and he much enjoyed this shadowy bondage and often pretended to groan under it. But now he launched on the task of making Melinda jealous for his private entertainment. With Soosie-Toosie the enterprise had failed. She humbly accepted the accomplishments of Ann King and praised her genius so heartily that Joe soon dropped the subject; but for Melinda it came as a new idea, and this enthusiasm on Mr. Stockman's part for a paragon at once unknown and eligible, caused Mrs. Honeysett just that measure of exasperation her first male friend desired to awaken. "My!" said Melinda, after listening to the glowing story of the farmer's daughter, her virtues, her resource, her financial ability and her practical knowledge of affairs; "I didn't know there were any angels to Brixham. Do she fly about, or only walk, like us common women?" "No, she walks," said Joe, delighted at his instant success; "but even in walking she never wastes a footstep, like most of us. Never wastes anything, and yet not close. Just a grasp of all that matters and a large scorn for all that don't. And as to being an angel, Melinda, you may say she is that--just in the same sense that you and Soosie-Toosie and all nice women are angels. Only that. She's a thorough human woman and, simply judged as a woman, a very fine piece indeed." Mrs. Honeysett laughed somewhat harshly. "Don't you drag me and Susan in. I'm sure he needn't do that, need he, Soosie? Such poor creatures as us--not worthy to hold a candle to this here Jane King."