"And would it be quite right to make any such arrangements, after having asked the superintendent to buy it, and he agreeing? Wouldn't he be the one to say something about it?" "Amy, you're incorrigible. You're a radical. A thing is either absolutely right or it is absolutely wrong--according to your standard. You'll be in trouble as long as you live, for you'll find nobody else with such antiquated notions as yours. There are a great many things that are expedient." "I hate expedient things. I like just the easy, simple 'no' and 'yes' that was my darling mother's rule. I'm glad I'm at least a birthright Friend." Mr. Wingate was silent. He seemed to drop into a profound reverie, and the girl hesitated to disturb him, eager as she now was to be away. Finally, as she had made up her mind to speak, he did so himself. "Amy, do you ever use the plain speech now?" "Sometimes--between ourselves. For mother's sake we can never let it die." "Will thee use it to me now and then? It was the habit of my boyhood. Salome was my oldest friend. We've played together in this very room, again and again. She was my good angel. Until--No matter. You are her child. Not like her at all in face or manner. She was always gentle, and shrank from giving pain. Truthful and puritanical as she was in her ideas, she had the tact, the knowledge to say things without hurting those whom she corrected. She corrected me often and often, when we were young, but she hurt me--never. Now, you--heigho!" "Now, I hurt--thee. Of course. I speak first and think afterward. But does thee know, cousin Archibald, thee is the very queerest man I ever met?" "Have you--has thee--known many?" "Very few. Thee is so good on one side and so--so--not nice on the other. Like a half-ripened pear. But I am sorry for thee. I wish I could do thee good. Do I speak it as thee wishes?" "Indeed, yes. It is music, even though the words are unflattering enough. Well, I'll not keep thee longer. And I don't ask you to call attention to this whim of mine by saying 'thee' in public," he remarked, himself falling back into the habit of their intercourse. "No; if I say 'thee,' it is to be always, whenever I remember--like a bond to remind me I must be kind to thee for my mother's sake. If she did thee good, I must try to do thee good too." "In what way?" Amy reflected. The first, most obvious way, would be by cheering his solitude. Yet she hesitated. The thing which had come into her mind involved the desires of others also. She had no right, until she consulted them, to commit herself. Yet she disliked to leave this lonely old fellow, without trying to make him glad. She sat down again in the chair from which she had risen and regarded him critically. "Oh, cousin Archibald, if thee were only a little bit different!" "Thee, too!" he laughed--actually laughed; and the action seemed to clear his features like a sunburst. "Oh, of course. Well, it's this way. To-morrow's Christmas, isn't it?"