"Why, Nettie Trench--from you!" cried Nan, and plumped back into her chair. "When did he drink too much? Just once--when he knew so little of wine that he had no idea how much would upset him. The trouble was that poor Larry never knew how to hide anything he ever did. No hypocrisy in him at any rate. And I'd a good deal rather have a man who did what Larry did, and own to it and be sorry right out, than a man that you never know when he is lying to you or not, or what he is likely to be doing when he is out of sight. And he gave me his promise in a letter that he would never touch another card or drink another glass of wine until I said he might. Mother wouldn't let me answer the letter. And he guessed how it was, and I don't blame him for writing her as he did. Mamma was too harsh. She paid too much attention to town gossip, and I told her that. And she said: 'I think, Nan, a little travelling and discipline won't hurt you one bit'; and then Larry went and got his appointment to the marine corps, thinking there might be a war and some fighting for him down in this country." Now, I always have held that women, even as men of any account, are never so attractive as when they throw aside all affectation and stand forth just as they are--that is, if they're wholesome and good to begin with; and no surer way to hold the right kind of a boy to the line than to let him know that the right girl has never lost faith in him. But Nan was holding forth altogether too bravely--with the boy in the case so handy. A few little reservations--a few--at this particular time, I thought, would do no harm. And so "Sh-h, Nan!" I warned. "I won't sh-h, Nettie Trench. It's so and you know it. I hate superior people, Nettie. Father always did, too. And you know how he liked Larry. Dear papa! One night, Nettie--I was never so surprised--mamma all at once began to cry--imagine mamma crying! She was crying for papa, who had to die, she said, before she could appreciate the gentleness and warm heart that was in him. And papa always said that no kind of people go further to the bad than those who really think they're better than others. He used to say that such beasts, for their punishment, ought to be forced to herd by themselves." I believe in what Nan said myself, but also, thinking of the wily woman waiting below, I decided that a little chastening of the spirit of rebellious girlhood would now be in order. So I said: "But a long record of the human race, Nan, proves that if we do not intend to try to be better than the people we happen to be with, then we ought to take care whom we are with."