"No more I was," Beth answered casually. "Yet you knew him all the same?" Aunt Victoria ventured reproachfully. "Aunt Victoria," said Beth, "did the Lord die for Sammy?" "Ye--yes," said Aunt Victoria, hesitating, not because she doubted the fact, but because she did not know what use Beth would make of it. "Then why can't _I_ know him?" Beth asked. "Oh, be--because Sammy does not live as if he were grateful to the Lord." "If he did, would he be a gentleman?" Beth asked. "Yes," Aunt Victoria answered decidedly. Beth stopped snipping, and looked at her as if she were looking right through her, and out into the world beyond. Then she pursed up her mouth and shook her head. "That won't hold water," she said. "If a man must live like the Lord to be a gentleman, what is Uncle James? And if living like the Lord makes a man a gentleman, why don't we call on old Job Fisher?" Aunt Victoria began to fear that the task she had undertaken would prove too much for her. "It is hard, very hard," she muttered. "Well, never mind," said Beth, resuming her work. "When I grow up I mean to write about things like that. But what were we talking about? Oh, beating Sammy. I did feel bad after I beat him, and I vowed I'd never do it again however tiresome he was, and I never did. It makes it easier if you vow. It's just as if your hands were tied then. I'd like to tell mamma to try it, only she'd be sure to get waxy. You tell her, Aunt Victoria." Aunt Victoria made some reply which was lost in the noise of vehicles passing in the street, followed by the tramp of many feet and a great chattering. An excursion train had just arrived, and the people were pouring into the place. Beth ran to the window and watched them. "More confounded trippers," she ejaculated. "They spoil the summer, swarming everywhere." "Beth, I wish, to please me, you would make another vow. Don't say 'confounded trippers.'" "All right, Aunt Victoria. Jim says it. But I know all the bad words in the language were made for the men. I suppose because they have all the bad thoughts, and do all the bad things. I shall say 'objectionable excursionists' in future." She went to the door. "I'm just going to get something," she said. "You won't go away now, will you? I shall be a minute or two, but I want you to be here when I come back. I shall be wild if you're not." She banged the door after her and ran downstairs.