As Pansy walked reluctantly out into the hall, she stopped with a deep wish in her candid eyes. "Oh, Mrs. Meredith, I should so much like to see the portrait of Dent's father: he has often spoken to me about It." Mrs. Meredith led her away in silence to where the portrait hung, and the two stood looking at it side by side. She resisted a slight impulse to put her arm around the child. When they returned to the front of the house, Pansy turned: "Do you think you will ever love me?" The carriage was at the door. "You must not walk," said Mrs. Meredith, "the sun is too hot now." As Pansy stepped into the carriage, she cast a suspicious glance at the cushions: Meredith upholstery was not to be trusted, and she seated herself warily. Mrs. Meredith put her hand through the window: "You must come to see me soon again, Pansy. I am a poor visitor, but I shall try to call on you in a few days." She went back to her seat on the veranda. It has been said that her insight into goodness was her strength; she usually had a way of knowing at once, as regards the character of people, what she was ever to know at all. Her impressions of Pansy unrolled themselves disconnectedly: "She makes mistakes, but she does not know how to do wrong. Guile is not in her. She is so innocent that she does not realize sometimes the peril of her own words. She is proud--a great deal prouder than Dent. To her, life means work and duty; more than that, it means love. She is ambitious, and ambition, in her case, would be indispensable. She did not claim Dent: I appreciate that. She is a perfectly brave girl, and it is cowardice that makes so many women hypocrites. She will improve--she improved while she was here. But oh, everything else! No figure, no beauty, no grace, no tact, no voice, no hands, no anything that is so much needed! Dent says there are cold bodies which he calls planets without atmosphere: he has found one to revolve about him. If she only had some clouds! A mist here and there, so that everything would not be so plain, so exposed, so terribly open! But neither has _he_ any clouds, any mists, any atmosphere. And if she only would not so try to expose other people! If she had not so trampled upon me in my ignorance; and with such a sense of triumph! I was never so educated in my life by a visitor. The amount of information she imparted in half an hour--how many months it would have served the purpose of a well-bred woman! And her pride in her family--were there ever such little brothers and sisters outside a royal family! And her devotion to her father, and remembrance of her mother. I shall go to see her, and be received, I suppose, somewhere between the griddle and the churn."