"We feel a great concern for your future," said Kesiah. "Whatever we can do to help you, we shall do very gladly. I always felt a peculiar pity and sympathy for your mother." Her voice choked, for it was, perhaps, as spontaneous an expression of her emotions as she had ever permitted herself. "Thank you, ma'am," replied Molly simply, and the title of respect to which Reuben had trained her dropped unconsciously from her lips. She honestly liked Kesiah, though, in common with the rest of her little world, she had fallen into the habit of regarding her as a person whom it was hardly worth one's while to consider. Mrs. Gay had so completely effaced her sister that the rough edges of Kesiah's character were hardly visible beneath the little lady's enveloping charm. "It is natural that you should have felt bitterly toward your father," began the older woman again in a trembling voice, "but I hope you realize that the thought of his wrong to you and your mother saddened his last hours." To her surprise Molly received the remark almost passionately. "How could that give me back my mother's ruined life?" she demanded. "I know, dear, but the fact remains that he was your father---" "Oh, I don't care in the least about the fact," retorted Molly, with her pretty rustic attempt at a shrug, which implied, in this case, that the government of nature, like that of society, rested solely on the consent of the governed. What was clear to Kesiah was that this rebellion against the injustice of the universe, as well as against the expiation of Mr. Jonathan, was the outcome of a strong, though undisciplined, moral passion within her. In her way, Molly was as stern a moralist as Sarah Revercomb, but she derived her convictions from no academic system of ethics. Kesiah had heard of her as a coquette; now she realized that beneath the coqueteries there was a will of iron. "You must come to us, some day, dear, and let us do what we can to make you happy," she said. "It would be a pity for all that money to go to the conversion of the Chinese, who are doubtless quite happy as they are." "I wonder why he chose the Chinese?" replied the girl. "They seem so far away, and there's poor little Mrs. Meadows at Piping Tree who is starving for bread." "He was always like that--and so is my sister Angela--the thing that wasn't in sight was the thing he agonized over." She did not confess that she had detected a similar weakness in herself, and that, seen the world over, it is the indubitable mark of the sentimentalist. Analysis of Mr. Jonathan's character, however, failed to interest his daughter. She smiled sweetly, but indifferently, and made a movement to pass on into the meadow. Then, looking into Kesiah's face, she said in a warmer voice: "If ever you want my help about your store room, Miss Kesiah, just send for me. When you're ready to change the brine on your pickles, I'll come down and do it."