New scraps were continually being pasted into the album, and it seemed to Mavis that she ought to have bought a bigger one, if indeed any albums were made of a size sufficiently big to contain all the evidences of her husband’s gratified ambition.  Scarce a Courier was published without “a bit” in it that referred to Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits Farm.  He was really becoming quite a public character.  He had been called to the District Council, on its foundation, as a personage who could not be left out.  When the Otterford branch of the Fire Brigade was instituted all agreed in inviting Mr. Dale to be its captain; and four of the once sluggish yard-servants had immediately decided that they must follow their master wherever he led, and had enrolled themselves forthwith under his captaincy.  He was a prominent figure at the Old Manninglea corn market, known by sight in its streets, and had recently been chosen as a member of its very select tradesmen’s club.  This was an affair truly different from that vulgar boozing circle at the Gauntlet Inn which he had denounced so contemptuously in old days.  The Manninglea Club was solid and respectable, a pleasant meeting-place where he could take his midday meal after market business in company with men of substance and repute.  He was on friendly terms with most of the farmers between the down country and Rodhaven Harbor; and last, but not least, the gentry all passed the time of day when they met him, and many would stop him on the high-roads for a chat in the most polite and jolly fashion.

He confessed to Mavis that the sweetest thing in his success was the feeling of being no longer disliked.

“Oh, Will, you never were disliked.”

“But that’s just what I was.  And I begin to get a glimmer of the reason why.  I was reading an article in Answers last week, and it seemed as if it had been written specially to enlighten me.  It was about sympathy.  The author, who didn’t sign his name, but was ev’dently a man of powerful int’lect, said that without understanding you can’t sympathize; and he went on to show that without sympathy the whole world would come to a standstill.”

“Ah,” said Mavis, “that’s the sort of difficult reading that you like.  It’s too deep for me.”

“It’s plain as the nose on one’s face, come to think of it.  Sympathy is the key-note.  It enables you to look at things from both sides—­to put yourself in another man’s place, and ask yourself the question, What should I be thinking and doing, if I was him?—­I should say if I was he.  In the old days I was very deficient in that.  A fool just made me angry.  Now I try to put myself in his place.”  He paused, and smiled.  “Perhaps you’ll say I’m there already—­a fool myself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that;” and Mavis smiled too.  “Not quite a fool, Will.”

He went on analyzing his characteristics, talking with great interest in the subject, and after a didactic style, but not with the heavy egoistic method that he had often employed years ago.