“Oh, Norman isn’t mean in some ways.  He’d give a thousand without blinking a lash, and roar like a Bull of Bashan if he had to pay five cents too much for anything.  Besides, he likes Mr. Meredith’s sermons, and Norman Douglas was always willing to shell out if he got his brains tickled up.  There is no more Christianity about him than there is about a black, naked heathen in Africa and never will be.  But he’s clever and well read and he judges sermons as he would lectures.  Anyhow, it’s well he backs up Mr. Meredith and the children as he does, for they’ll need friends more than ever after this.  I am tired of making excuses for them, believe me.”

“Do you know, dear Miss Cornelia,” said Anne seriously, “I think we have all been making too many excuses.  It is very foolish and we ought to stop it.  I am going to tell you what I’d like to do.  I shan’t do it, of course”—­Anne had noted a glint of alarm in Susan’s eye—­“it would be too unconventional, and we must be conventional or die, after we reach what is supposed to be a dignified age.  But I’d like to do it.  I’d like to call a meeting of the Ladies Aid and W.M.S. and the Girls Sewing Society, and include in the audience all and any Methodists who have been criticizing the Merediths—­although I do think if we Presbyterians stopped criticizing and excusing we would find that other denominations would trouble themselves very little about our manse folks.  I would say to them, ’Dear Christian friends’—­with marked emphasis on ’Christian’—­I have something to say to you and I want to say it good and hard, that you may take it home and repeat it to your families.  You Methodists need not pity us, and we Presbyterians need not pity ourselves.  We are not going to do it any more.  And we are going to say, boldly and truthfully, to all critics and sympathizers, ’We are proud of our minister and his family.  Mr. Meredith is the best preacher Glen St. Mary church ever had.  Moreover, he is a sincere, earnest teacher of truth and Christian charity.  He is a faithful friend, a judicious pastor in all essentials, and a refined, scholarly, well-bred man.  His family are worthy of him.  Gerald Meredith is the cleverest pupil in the Glen school, and Mr. Hazard says that he is destined to a brilliant career.  He is a manly, honourable, truthful little fellow.  Faith Meredith is a beauty, and as inspiring and original as she is beautiful.  There is nothing commonplace about her.  All the other girls in the Glen put together haven’t the vim, and wit, and joyousness and ‘spunk’ she has.  She has not an enemy in the world.  Every one who knows her loves her.  Of how many, children or grown-ups, can that be said?  Una Meredith is sweetness personified.  She will make a most lovable woman.  Carl Meredith, with his love for ants and frogs and spiders, will some day be a naturalist whom all Canada—­nay, all the world, will delight to honour.  Do you know of any other family in the Glen, or out of it, of whom all these things can be said?  Away with shamefaced excuses and apologies.  We rejoice in our minister and his splendid boys and girls!”