“I didn’t understand it at first, but I begin to now. He wanted to establish relations with as many men here as he could. And the farmers he invites here to dinner--you should see them! Sometimes I think I shall have to leave the table. It’s all I can do, often, to be decently civil to them, rough, vulgar men, unwashed and untidy, whom he waylays out on the road and brings in. He thinks I ought to exert myself to make them feel at home, and chat with them about their wives and children, and ugh! call on them and form friendships with them. But I draw the line there. If he enjoys bringing them here, why I can’t help it; and if he likes to drive about, and be hail-fellow-well-met with them, that is his own affair. But----” She stopped, and Seth felt that the silence was eloquent. He began to realize that his pretty sister-in-law was in need of sympathy, and to rank himself, with indignant fervor, on her side. Annie Fairchild came in. Seth had seen and spoken with her several times, during the period of his father’s death and funeral, but hurriedly and in the presence of others. Her appearance now recalled instantly the day of the fishing trip--a soft and pleasant memory, which during his year’s exile had at times been truly delicious to him. The women thought of it too, now, and talked of it, at Seth rather than to him, and with a playful spirit of badinage. As of old, Isabel did most of the talking. Annie had become quite a woman, Seth said to himself, as she took off her hat, tidied her hair before the glass, and laughingly joined in the conversation. She talked very well, too, but she seemed always to think over her words, and there appeared to be in her manner toward him a certain something, intangible, indefinite, which suggested constraint. He could feel, though he could not explain, it. During his stay in Tecumseh he had seen almost nothing of the other sex. There were often some young women at the boarding-house, but he had not got beyond a speaking acquaintance at the table with any of them, in the few instances where his shyness had permitted even that. His year in a city had improved him in many ways. He could wear good clothes now without awkwardness; he spoke readily among men, and with excellent choice of language; he knew how to joke without leading the laughter himself. But he had had no chance to overcome by usage his diffidence in female company, and he had not been quite at ease in his mind since Annie came in. She seemed to make a stranger of him.