“Are you quite sure that you fully forgive me for my desperate crime?” “Yes, Jo.” “I might have been a credit to you instead of a disgrace had I acted differently,” he said, turning on his side to look at me. “When you were reading just now I thought of the afternoon in Fairview when we went out to the hayloft to talk of our future, after it was announced that I was to go to Damon Barker’s to live, and I thought that while we have turned out very much as we hoped we should, you were brave and patient in your sorrow, while I was utterly cast down by mine and ruined. Do you forgive me for that?” “Yes, Jo; everything. I love you so much that I cannot think of your faults.” He turned on his back again, and remained quiet so long that I, too, thought of the Sunday afternoon in Fairview, and of what he had said. Jo was evidently thinking of the same thing, for at last he continued:-- “I remember of your mother saying to me once that she believed you and I would grow up into brave and honorable men; men who would love their wives and children instead of treating them as they were treated in Fairview, and I feel very guilty now that I realize that she was mistaken in her opinion of me. It would have been genuine bravery had I conquered my horror of the letter, my hate for Clinton Bragg, and made Mateel love me in spite of everything; but I did not know what the word meant then, though I do now, and your mother probably meant something like that. My boyhood was so wretched that I expected relief from wretchedness when I was married, but perhaps I should have known that unhappiness attends every condition in life, and that bravery and nobility consists in forgiving and forgetting, together with gentleness and capacity. My life has been one long mistake; I should think you would find it hard to forgive that, after expecting so much of me.” “No, Jo; not at all hard. If you are entitled to charity from me, I gave it without knowing it, for I only think of you to regret that a man so worthy has been so unfortunate. I never reproached you in my life.” “Although I believe you forgive me fully,” he continued, “I cannot forgive myself, though I confess my weakness, and say that I always did the best I could. I conquered everything except shame over the contents of the letter and hate at the sight of Bragg. These dragged me down as discontent dragged John Westlock down; perhaps any man could be ruined if attacked at the right place.” Wiser men than you, Jo, are of that opinion, and I regarded it as the most eloquent defence he had ever made. Those who believe in their own strength have great charity for themselves and none at all for others, but those of us who are more candid, and learned in the world’s affairs, acknowledge our own weakness in admitting the weakness of others.