And the blessed John did not come back until black, dark night!--not until it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand before you or the girl beside you, which is nearer the truth; not until the stout woman in spectacles with the conversational habit, had brought in a lard-oil lamp with a big globe, which she set down on Margaret's table among her books and papers. And when John did come, and poked his twice-blessed head between the curtains, it was not to sit down inside and talk until supper-times but to say that it was getting cold outside and that they ought to have a fire if they intended to sit in the studio after supper. (Oh, what a trump of a brother!) And if they didn't mind he'd send Hopeful right away with some chips to start it. All of which Miss Hopeful Prime accomplished, talking all the time to Margaret as she piled up the logs, and not forgetting a final word to Oliver as she left the room, to the effect that she "guessed it, must be kind o' comfortin' to set by a fire"--such luxuries, of course, to her thinking, being unknown in his tropical land, where the blacks went naked and the children lay about in the sun munching watermelons and bananas. What an afternoon it had been! They had talked of the woods and their life under the trees; of the sketches they made and how they could improve them, and would; of the coming winter and the prospect of the school being opened and what it meant to them if it did, and how much more if it did not, and she be compelled to remain in Brookfield with Oliver away all winter in New York, and of a thousand and one other things that lay nearest their hearts and with which neither you nor I have anything to do. It was good, Margaret thought, to talk to him in this way, and see the quick response in his eyes and feel how true and helpful he was. She had dreaded his coming--dreaded the contrasts which she knew his presence among them would reveal. She knew how punctiliously polite he was, and how brusque and positive was her father. She realized, too, how outspoken and bluff was John, and how unaccustomed both he and her dear deaf mother were to the ways of the outside world. What would Oliver think of them? What effect would her home life have on their future? she kept saying to herself. Not that she was ashamed of her people, certainly not of her father, who really occupied a higher position than any of his neighbors. He was not only a deacon in the church and chairman of the School Board, but he had been twice sent to the Legislature, and at one time had been widely discussed as a fitting candidate for Governor. Nobody in Brookfield thought the less of him because of his peculiarities--many of his neighbors liked him the better for his brusqueness; they believed in a man who had the courage of his convictions and who spoke out, no matter whose toes he trod on.