“I’ll bet you did,” said Mr. Knox. “I can see ’em at you. And I can also very well guess what they said about me.” “Especially Mary. I never heard her use such language, and I never saw her so properly awake before. But I was glad after, because when she called you a crafty old limb of the Dowl, that got my fighting spirit up and they heard a home truth or two. I thought they were very different stuff.” “If you take people as you find ’em, you’ll make friends,” answered Mr. Knox; “but if you take people as you fancy ’em, you will not. No doubt folk are very flattered at first to find our opinion of ’em is as high as their opinion of themselves. But that don’t last. We can’t for long think of any fellow creature as highly as he thinks of himself. The strain’s too great, and so, presently, we come down to the truth about our friend; and he sees we know it and can’t forgive us. So the friendship fades out, because it was built on fancy and not on reality. That’s what happens to most friendships in the long run.” “I suppose I never got quite a true picture of my brother’s wife,” admitted Lydia. “You did not. And what’s hurting her so sharp for the minute and making her so beastly rude is—not so much your going, as your knowing the truth about her. But don’t you fret. They’ll cringe presently. I dare say they’ll be at our wedding yet.” “I wish I could think so,” she answered. “But it ought to come right, for, after all, I’m a mother too, and what choice had I when Ned got me in a corner like that?” “Not an earthly,” declared Mr. Knox. They joined Ned and Medora presently. The view was nothing to any of them, but the elders welcomed the breeze at hill top. Their talk concerned the wedding. “A very Christian spirit in the air,” Philander asserted. “Even Nicholas Pinhey has forgiven me, thanks to your mother, Medora. He dropped in on Saturday, and he said, ‘You called me a caterpillar, not so very many weeks ago, Mr. Knox,’ and I answered, ‘I’m afraid you’re right.’ And he said, ‘Yes; and when you done so, I thought it was a case of “Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he sayeth.”— And I wish you to understand that I forgive it and forget it also, out of respect for Mrs. Trivett. The man that Mrs. Trivett thinks good enough to marry must have some virtues hidden from common eyes,’ said Nicholas to me.” “And Mercy Life’s forgiven me,” said Medora. “I wouldn’t let her have any peace till she did. And Alice Barefoot passes the time of day even! That’s thanks to mother of course.” “They’re getting up a fine wedding present for mother in the rag house,” announced Ned. “It’s a secret, but Henry Barefoot told me. It’s going to take the shape of a tea service, I believe.” “I can’t see myself away from the rag house,” murmured Mrs. Trivett. “You couldn’t see yourself away from Priory Farm, mother,” said Medora.