"I think she has. Perhaps it will. You have always been good and generous to her, Ray." What did he say that for? Why did he make it impossible for her to let it go so? "Don't!" she exclaimed. "I am not generous to her this minute! I couldn't help, when you said it, being satisfied--that you should see. I don't know whether it is mean or true in me, that I always do want people to see the truth." She covered it up with that last sentence. The first left by itself, might have shown him more. It was certainly so; that there was a little severity in Ray Ingraham, growing out of her clear perception and her very honesty. When she could see a thing, it seemed as if everybody ought to see it; if they did not, as if she ought to show them, that they might fairly understand. A half understanding made her restless, even though the other half were less kind and comfortable. "You show the truth of yourself, too," said Frank. "And that is grand, at any rate." "You need not praise me," said Ray, almost coldly. "It is impossible to be _quite_ true, I think. The nearer you try to come to it, the more you can't"--and then she stopped. "How many changes there have been among us!" she began again, suddenly, at quite a different point, "All through the village there have been things happening, in this last year. Nobody is at all as they were a year ago. And another year"-- "Will tell another year's story," said Frank Sunderline. "Don't you like to think of that sometimes? That the story isn't done, ever? That there is always more to tell, on and on? And that means more to _do_. We are all making a piece of it. If we stayed right still, you see,--why, the Lord might as well shut up the book!" He was full of life, this young man, and full of the delight of living. There was something in his calling that made him rejoice in a confident strength. He was born to handle tools; hammer and chisel were as parts of him. He builded; he believed in building; in something coming of every stroke. Real work disposes and qualifies a man to believe in a real destiny,--a real God. A carpenter can see that nails are never driven for nothing. It is the sham work, perhaps, of our day, that shakes faith in purpose and unity; a scrambling, shifty living of men's own, that makes to their sight a chance huddle and phantasm of creation. Mrs. Ingraham came down into the room where they were, at this moment, and Dot presently followed. They began to talk of their plans. They were going, now, to live with the grandmother in Boston, in Pilgrim Street.