“ Dr. Ballard laughed out.
"Don't you see it's all nonsense, Katherine? The whole thing isn't worth a serious thought. If your grandmother likes to have her little joke, why, let us try to see the humor of it. Perhaps she doesn't want you to marry me. But now she sees it's inevitable, she'll——"
"No," said Katherine. "It's not inevitable. I can't marry you."
Dr. Ballard was silent, but Madam Crewe's words snapped out like sparks from a live wire.
"The day Norris was here, you said you would. You insisted you would. ”

“ A book I know I must never open if ever I am to be at peace with life. For I will say it once and so be done, Idea is my mate—the one woman in the world whom only I love, or ever shall. I have lost her, but the memory of her I must keep until I die—my passionate, headstrong, struggling, loving child. ”

“ He fancied his wife felt more content when she was by, and, certainly, the baby slept better on her ample bosom than anywhere else.
It was a tiny creature, very delicate and fragile, a mere scrap of humanity that Martha could hold in the hollow of her hand.
In the privacy of their own sitting-room, the two trained nurses confided to Mrs. Slawson: "It's too bad the parents' hearts are so set on the child. They'll never raise it, never!" ”

“ You've got the kind of love that weighs and balances, have you? You won't take more than you can give! Why, young miss, let me tell you, you may think that's high-flown and noble—it's no such thing! If you want to know what it is, it's your great-grandfather's arrogance turned inside out, that's all! If you refuse to marry the man you love, because you have nothing to offer him, you're as bad as I was when I refused because my lover had nothing to offer me. ”

“ It wasn't fair that one life should be crippled to serve the whim of another. If her grandmother insisted on cutting her off from all natural pleasures, let her take the consequences. She fell asleep at last, nursing her sense of injury, brooding over her wrongs.
The next morning, while the casual Eunice was clearing the breakfast table, Katherine heard a sound outside, which caused her to hurry to the window. The sound was familiar, but the time for it unusual. The doctor's car was not due at Crewesmere so early in the day. ”

“ Martha's unaccustomed severity startled Katherine out of her hysteria. She nodded acquiescence.
"Why did you tell me, firstoff, when you'd took the pocket?"
"Because I loathed myself so. I couldn't bear it alone."
"Why did you clap the name o' thief to yourself? Are you proud o' it?"
"It's the truth. I have to tell the truth!"
"Why have you?"
"Because it's right to."
"Then, on your own say-so, you ain't any o' those things you said. Don't you see you ain't? A thief don't hate what he does, so he's afraid to be alone with himself. A liar don't have to stick to the truth, does he? ”

“ For once in my life, I am going to have my say—I'm going to forget I am young and you are old, and I'm going to let you know what I have been feeling, thinking, being all these years, when you've thought I was a tame thing you could order about, and scold and ridicule, to the top of your bent. ”

“ Katherine could not answer. After a moment of silent waiting, the doctor gently released her hand.
"I met Mrs. Slawson as I came along," he said in his usual manner. "She's a trump, that woman. The most normal human creature I've ever met."
"Her English isn't normal," Katherine said, trying to control the helpless trembling that was shaking her from head to foot.
"She's an impressionist. That's what's the matter with Hannah!—I should say, Martha. She gets and produces her effects in the large. She doesn't trouble with details. ”

“ Slawson to appreciate it, too, "I'll take you in hand. Whenever you want to know anything, all you have to do is come to me, and I'll tell you. I'll consider it a pleasure. I can see where there's a lot for you to learn. The city is a poor place to be brought up and live in, all your life, with its vice, and its selfishness, and the like of that. But, now you've come here, you'll see something different. Why, you'll feel made over, when you've learned our honest, generous country ways."
Seeing Mrs. Peckett rise cumbersomely, in preparation for departure, Martha also got upon her feet. ”

“ You never saw such nuisances as those Fresh Air children! Several of our ladies take them in, every summer, for a spell, but I wouldn't have one of them in my house, tracking mud and dirt in on my clean floors—not for anything I can think of. Mrs. Fred Trenholm, who lives down at Milby's Corners, she took in three last season. You should have seen them at church. Ungodly don't express it! Didn't know the creed even. Couldn't sit still through divine worship, on the Sabbath, like Christians."
"Likely that's because most of'm's Jews," Martha observed calmly. ”

“ You are strong as they make'm, an' stayin' 's all there is for you. Ellen owed it to herself to leave her mother. You owe it to yourself to stand by yours."
"Then I'll go to Mr. Ronald. He'll take me—when I tell him."
"Don't you believe it. An' you won't tell'm either, Miss Katherine. You're too proud, an' he's too fair. It wouldn't take him a minute to tell you, 'Stay by the poor little ol' lady, till she's no need o' you no more, which it won't be long, now, anyhow.' It wouldn't take'm a minute to tell you that, Miss Katherine—not for Madam Crewe's sake—but for yours." ”

“ Katherine stood at attention, but silent, unequal to the task of counterfeiting interest.
"I've been thinking, I'm going to give the cow to Slawson. It bothers me when I can't pay my debts, and the woman won't take a cent for what she's done. Besides, it's expensive keeping live-stock these days, with fodder so high, and labor even worse. We don't need a cow, just you and I. Cheaper to buy milk than feed the creature through the winter, and hire Peter to come and milk. It counts up. Slawson can keep her, and turn an honest penny letting us have milk at lowest price. See?"
"Yes, grandmother." ”

“ Is that rack-a-bones Flicker Slawson? Well, what do you think o' that! I bet there ain't been one o' you ever thought to give'm, or Nix either, a sup or a bite, since I been gone! Such a measly-appearin' dog an' cat, I never see. I'm ashamed to look'm in the face."
As she talked, Martha passed from room to room, tidying up, straightening out, getting the household wheels back into their accustomed grooves and, all the while, unconsciously transforming the atmosphere of the place, and the persons in it, until they reflected her own wholesome, vital air of well-being, well-doing. ”

“ You mustn't be in too much of a hurry. Miss Katherine'll see what you meant, give her a chance to get the right squint at it. You got to be pationate with childern. Time goes slow for them. Miss Katherine's a good child!"
Madam Crewe raised her eyes, and fixed them full on Martha. "Slawson—you're a good woman." ”

“ We're sirens, all of us, at heart—when we have any heart. I've not the slightest doubt, now, but if Slawson put on a pair of silk stockings and a lace petticoat, she'd feel as coquettish as any of us. ”

“ In the meantime, Martha had found Claire Ronald feverish and excited. It did not take her long to decide she would not leave the big house that night. When Sam returned to take him home, Dr. Driggs was not ready to go. Neither was Martha.
"But you'd better turn in, Slawson," advised Mr. Ronald. "No use in everybody's getting worn out. If I should need you, I'll call you up." ”

“ Almost immediately I discovered that my father had been duped by a cheap adventurer, a man without heart or conscience. A poor, weak wretch of profligate habits, a liar, a cheat. He had posed in society as a man of means, heir to a title. ”

“ She brought grandmother an armful of roses. The loveliest things! Long-stemmed ones, almost as tall as she is herself. Have you ever seen her? Mrs. Ronald? She's the daintiest creature! She makes me feel a giantess. And so unaffected, and cordial. So different from Mrs. Sherman, who was Katherine Ronald. Somehow, I feel as if her being here, were going to make things pleasanter. I'm happier, more contented, and hopeful, than I've been for ever so long."
"And Mrs. Ronald sent her car for Mrs. Slawson?" ”

“ I stand on my own feet, don't I? If I have built up my life on honest principle, I can't see how you can reasonably hold me to account for the sins or fancied sins of my forbears. Our democracy isn't worth the name, if it doesn't admit a man's a man for a' that. I love your granddaughter. I wish to marry her. I ask your consent."
Katherine could not see her grandmother's face for the sudden mist that had gathered to trouble her vision. ”

“ It was wonderful how the load lifted from Katherine's heart.
"I don't know how it is, Mrs. Slawson," she said at length, "but whenever you're here, I feel about twice as strong and brave, as at any other time. It isn't alone that you do so much, but you make me think I can do things too; things I know I'm not equal to, otherwise."
Martha smiled. "Believe me, you don't know what you're equal to, an' don't you forget it. No more do I. We ain't done up in bags, like seven pounds o' sugar, we human bein's, so's we know what we're equal to. ”

“ He has a car. Buller mayn't suspect we're helping the girl, but when he didn't find her in that direction, Harding may have offered to take a hand in the game."
"Would any man o' conscience help a fella like Buller, who all the neighborhood knows the life he's led this poor creature—him an' the mother, which she's a disgrace to the name."
"No, but Harding ain't a man of conscience,—not so you'd notice it, as you say. If Buller's out on the still-hunt, Harding'd join in for the pleasure of the chase."
"Put on power," directed Martha. ”

“ Instantly, she thought of two persons—the two who, more than any others she had ever known, had got the most good pleasure out of life. Daniel Ballard—Martha Slawson. Two very different personalities, in widely different situations, yet with the same invincible courage, the same curious capacity for inspiring others with their own faith in all that is best. These two had the same wide vision, the same high purpose. They both had looked on life, and found it good.
Long before her car reached Burbank, Katherine had determined to go home. ”

“ But Katherine was quicker than he. She turned and had run from the room before he could prevent her.
Madam Crewe let her breath escape in a long sigh of fatigue.
"Dear me! What tiresome things the young are! As Slawson says, they're hard as nails. You'd better reconsider, and ask me to marry you instead of Katherine. I'm seasoned, if not mellowed. Yes, you'd much better marry me."
Dr. Ballard smiled grimly. "Where my handsomer grandfather failed, how could I hope to win?" ”

“ I'm as cross as your grandmother's worsted-work. I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail. Keep out o' my way, everybody, till I get my house lookin' like a house again, an' my fam'ly in order, so's they'll have the appearance o' civilized human bein's, no matter what they reely are. Cora, you set the kettle on, while Sammy an' me goes down cellar to start a little fire in the furnace, to take the chill out o' the air an' the grouch out o' Ma. Francie, while you're restin' run down to the store an' get me a pound o' tea—I see there ain't a leaf left in the caddy. ”

“ Miss Claire's the most refinder-lookin'. An' that's God's truth. Miss Katherine's tall. The sorta grand, proud-lookin', I-would-n't-call-the-queen-my-cousin kind. An' you——! Well, you'll know how a body feels about you, when the blessed lamb comes home in August, which, believe me, the news of it is the joyfulest ever I heard in my life. You'll know how a body feels about you, by the way you feel about it. Like pertectin' it, an' caressin' it, an'—an'—keepin' harm away from the innercent heart of it. If you don't believe me, ask Lord Ronald. ”

“ An' how can we learn'm not to be it, if we're that way ourselves? There's a lady I usedta work out for— (you know her—Mrs. Sherman, Mr. Frank Ronald's sister) . She give her boy every bloomin' thing money could buy——. But she never give'm a square deal. You can take it from me, what a young 'un respec's is a square deal. He mayn't like it, but he respec's it. An' you for givin' it to'm.
"Now, beggin' pardon for the liberty, I don't think Miss Katherine's had a square deal, or a fair show. She ain't had what's her rights, an' she knows it. You kep' her too close on—well, lots o' things. ”

“ Martha ruminated. "Wouldn't you wonder how anythin' gets done in this world, when nothin' anybody ever tries seems to succeed? Is Nora as gallus-lookin' as ever? Or is she holdin' in her horses some, now her husban's kind o' down an' out, for the time bein'?"
"Nora's just the same, as far as I can see. Our Nora says Nora-Andy is distroying Andy with her extravagance. She says the way she dresses, alone, it's no wonder he is always in and out of some get-rich-quick scheme, that'll land him in the poor-house, or worse, if he don't look out. ”

“ There's that to be thankful for. An' doncher break your heart, Sam, worryin' about your bein' such a fool as sign that tool—I should say instrument. I done the same thing myself, now I come to think of it. The pot can't call the kettle black. I set my name to a paper, ol' lady Crewe ast me to, an' God only knows how much I'll be stung for it, for I don't.—But wouldn't it kinda discourage you from puttin' by for a rainy day, when the money you scrimped an' scringed to save, has to go for a umbrella to keep some other fella dry, which all you get, is the drippin's—right in the neck! ”

“ There ain't a minute in the day, when some one o' you childern ain't shoutin' it—you, or Francie, or Sammy, or Sabina—an' it's got on my nerves, as Mrs. Sherman says. You can call me 'Martha' or 'Little Sunshine' or anythin' else you got a mind to, but 'Mother-r-r,' not on your life. ”

“ Have you any idea what the trouble is?"
Katherine flushed. "It's all too absurd. A man by the name of Ballard was bailiff to her father, when she was a girl."
"I know that. My grandfather. What then? A bailiff's is a perfectly good job. Look at Slawson. He's all right, isn't he? But, anyway, things haven't stood still since those days. I'm not a bailiff. I'm a physician. ”

“ Driggs wasn't home, an' poor Sam took what he could get. When nothin's left, the king can't choose. But wouldn't you think any fella that called himself a doctor would know enough not to leave a lady, so the ones about her wouldn't know how to handle her case, an' she'd get worse by the minute, so to speak, for want of a stitch in time, that'd save her nine—meanin' doctors from the city, per'aps, an' trained nurses, night an' day, so the expense alone would kill her, not to mention other complercations. ”

“ Peckett laid a restraining hand on Martha's shoulder. "Now don't you stir a step," she admonished. "It's full two miles to walk to the Crewe place, and the traveling's heavy, on account of the dry spell. By the time you get there, most likely somebody else will have passed with a team, and you'll have your trouble for your pains. It won't hurt them a mite to go out of their way, if they're driving. That's what I say to Mr. P. 'Don't be too quick offering. Give other folks a chance.' Now, here were you, not half an hour back, saying you'd like I should improve you. ”