“Do you know, Kate,” said Ethel, after a long pause, “it hurt me almost as if that Mr. Tracy had been a friend of ours, when Tabitha told about him and--and that woman. It is so hard to have to believe evil of everybody. You would like to think well of some particular person whom you have seen--just as a pleasant fancy of the mind--and straightway they come and tell odious things about him. Didn’t it annoy you? And did you believe it?” Kate drew the ivory brush slowly over the flowing, soft-brown ringlets lying across her hand, again and again, but kept silence until Ethel repeated her latter question. Then she said, evasively: “When we get to be old maids, we sha’n’t spend our time in collecting people’s shortcomings, as boys collect postage-stamps, shall we, dear?” CHAPTER VII.--THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER’S WELCOME. The President of the United States, that year, had publicly professed himself of the opinion that “the maintenance of pacific relations with all the world, the fruitful increase of the earth, the rewards accruing to honest toil throughout the land, and the nation’s happy immunity from pestilence, famine, and disastrous visitations of the elements,” deserved exceptional recognition at the hands of the people on the last Thursday in November. The Governor of the State went further, both in rhetorical exuberance and in his conception of benefits received, for he enumerated “the absence of calamitous strife between capital and labor,” “the patriotic spirit which had dominated the toilers of the mine, the forge, the factory, and the mill, in their judicious efforts to unite and organize their common interests,” and “the wise and public-spirited legislation which in the future, like a mighty bulwark, would protect the great and all-important agricultural community from the debasing competition of unworthy wares”--as among the other things for which everybody should be thankful. There were many, no doubt, who were conscious of a kindly glow as they read beneath the formal words designating the holiday, and caught the pleasant and gracious significance of the Thanksgiving itself--strange and perverted survival as it is of a gloomy and unthankful festival. There were others, perhaps, who smiled a little at his Excellency’s shrewd effort to placate the rising and hostile workingmen’s movement and get credit from the farmers for the recent oleomargarine bill, and for the rest took the day merely as a welcome breathing spell, with an additional drink or two in the forenoon, and a more elaborate dinner than was usual. In the Lawton household they troubled their heads neither about the text and tricks of the proclamations nor the sweet and humane meaning of the day. There were much more serious matters to think of.