E-text prepared by Katherine Ward and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/wasitrighttofor00barrgoog Transcriber's note: Original spellings, including froward and Parry, were preserved as printed in the original. Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). WAS IT RIGHT TO FORGIVE? A Domestic Romance by AMELIA E. BARR Chicago Monarch Book Company Publishers Copyright 1899, By Herbert S. Stone & Co CHAPTER I Peter Van Hoosen was a result of Dutch Calvinism, and Dutch industry and thrift; also, of a belief in the Day of Judgment. The first motives were inherited tendencies, carefully educated; the last one, a conscious principle, going down to the depths of his nature and sharply dividing whatever was just and right from whatever was false and wrong. People whose religion was merely religiosity thought he took himself too seriously; but if they had a house to build, they wanted this man--who worked in the great Task-master's eye--to lay its foundation and raise its walls. So that, as a builder in stone, Peter Van Hoosen had a wide local celebrity. He was a strong, loose-limbed man, with a swarthy face and straight black hair, a man of sturdy beliefs and strong prepossessions, yet not devoid of those good manners which spring naturally from a good heart. Among his fellows he was grave and silent, and his entire personality had something of the coldness and strength of the stony material with which he worked. In his home there was a difference; there his black eyes glowed with affection, and even when a young man, his wife and his little children could lead him. As he grew older, and years and experience sweetened his nature, he became large-hearted and large-minded enough to feel that beyond certain limits there was a possibly lawful freedom.