So Dave came to realize that every incident in the reportorial round was to be assimilated for its educational value, and this lent a zest to his work which it could not otherwise have had. But the attraction of the Duncan household grew upon him, and many an hour he spent under its hospitable roof. Mrs. Duncan, motherly, and yet not too motherly--she might almost have been an older sister--appealed to the young man as an ideal of womanhood. Her soft, well modulated voice seemed to him to express the perfect harmony of the perfect home, and underneath its even tones he caught glimpses of a reserve of power and judgment not easily unbalanced. She was a woman to whom men might carry their ambitions, and women their hopes, and little children their wonderings, and all be assured of sympathetic audience and wise counsel. And as Dave's eyes would follow her healthy, handsome figure as it moved noiselessly about in her domestic duties, or as he caught the flush of beauty that still bloomed in her thoughtful face, or as at rarer intervals he plunged into the honest depths of her frank grey eyes, the tragedy of his own orphaned life bore down upon him and he rebelled that he had been denied the start which such a mother could have given him. "I am twenty years behind myself," he would reflect, with a grim smile. "Never mind. I will do three men's work for the next ten, and then we will be even." And there was Edith,--Edith, who had held him rapture-bound on that first Sunday in church--Edith, who had burst so unexpectedly upon his life that first evening in her father's home. He had not allowed himself any foolishness about Edith. It was evident that Edith was pre-empted, just as he was pre-empted, and the part of honour in his friend's house was to recognize the _status quo_. . . Still, Mr. Allan Forsyth was unnecessarily self-assured. He might have made it less evident that he was within the enchanted circle, while Dave remained outside. His complacence irritated Dave almost into rivalry. But the boon camaraderie of Edith herself checked any adventure of that kind. She checked it in two ways; by her own frank acceptance of him much as she would have accepted a brother in the household, and by her uncanny and unconscious knack of reminding him in almost every word and gesture of Reenie Hardy. She was of about the same figure as Reenie Hardy; a little slighter, perhaps; and about the same age; and she had the same quick, frank eyes. And she sang wonderfully. He had never heard Reenie sing, but in some strange way he had formed a deep conviction that she would sing much as Edith sang. He was not yet psychologist enough to know that his admiration for Edith was the reflex action to his love for the girl who had so wonderfully invaded his foothill life and so wonderfully changed the current of his destinies. In love, as in religion, man is forever setting up idols to represent his ideals. . . And forever finding feet of clay.