there was in his heart when she talked of Lois, for he was comforted in
a vague way by the sympathetic look which was always on Helen's face when
she spoke to any one who seemed troubled. So he was glad to come to the
parsonage as often as he could, and hear the Ashurst news, and have a cup
of tea with the preacher and his wife.

John and Helen often walked home with him, though his rooms were quite at
the other end of the town, near the river and the mills; and one night,
as they stood on the shaking bridge, and looked down at the brown water
rushing and plunging against the rotten wooden piers, Helen began to ask
him about Mr. Forsythe.

"Tell me about him," she said. "You have seen him since he left college.
I only just remember him in Ashurst, though I recall Mrs. Forsythe
perfectly: a tall, sick-looking lady, with an amiably melancholy face,
and three puffs of hair on each side of it."

"Except that the puffs are white now, she is just the same," Gifford
answered. "As for her son, I don't know anything about him. I believe we
were not very good friends when we were boys, but now--well, he has the
manners of a gentleman."

"Doesn't that go without saying?" said Helen, laughing. "From the letters
I've had, I fancy he is a good deal at the rectory."

"Yes," Gifford admitted. "But he is one of those people who make you feel
that though they may have good manners, their grandfathers did not, don't
you know?"

"But what difference does that make," John asked, "if he is a good man?"