Clemence found the Swan’s a little homespun couple, but, on the whole, much more endurable than Mrs. Wynn and Rose.

“I suppose you have heard all about Kate’s outrageous proceedings from our elderly friend?” laughed Mr. Swan, at the tea-table.  “Poor Mrs. Wynn.  She laid me under infinite obligations, by her efforts on my behalf, so much so, that sometimes the load of gratitude fairly oppresses me.  In case matters had turned out as she feared, though, I might eventually have consoled myself with the fair Miss Rose’s agreeable society.”

“There, there, Harry!” said his wife, “don’t say anything to prejudice Miss Graystone against them.  I have forgiven her long ago, and I only hope that Rose may succeed in obtaining half as good a husband as somebody I know of.”

“Well,” he said, bestowing a fond glance upon the bright face beside him, “we won’t say anything against them.  By the way, Kitty, I received a letter to-day from Sweet, and he announces the advent of another juvenile Sweet-ness, to be named in honor of your ladyship.  You see, Miss Graystone, he is a relative, having married a cousin of my wife’s.  There was some trouble about the match, for Uncle Eben objected to the young man, on account of his being a schoolteacher, He used to come to Kate for advice, and being rather a favorite with uncle, she finally succeeded in reconciling him to the marriage.  The young couple naturally think her ‘but little lower than the angels,’ since her efforts in their behalf, and I never saw Sweet so indignant at anybody in my life as he was at the Wynns, for starting that infamous story.  But I told him not to mind, it would blow over, and it did.  Mrs. Wynn is pretty well known here, and like the rest of us, I suppose, has her good traits and her bad ones.”

“How do you like our little village?” asked Mrs. Swan, to turn the conversation, a few moments after.

“I have been here so short a time that I can hardly judge, as yet,” replied Clemence.  “I think I shall like it better than I at first expected.”

“Indeed, I hope you will,” said her hostess.  “We would like very much to have you settle among us.  You must have observed, by this time, that there are few people of liberal education in the place.”

“Yet, they are a shrewd, sensible people,” said Mr. Swan, “who might, under more favorable auspices, make a figure in the world.  There are many kind-hearted, Christian men and women in Waveland, Miss Graystone, notwithstanding their rough and almost repulsive exterior.”

“I dare say there are many such,” she replied earnestly, thinking of the cold, heartless worldlings she had left behind her in the great, busy city.  “I do not judge altogether by outward appearances.”

“Nor I,” was the cordial answer; “the coat don’t make the man, in this community, but if any one is sick, or in trouble, they will always find these rough-handed villagers ready to sympathize and aid.”