duty of hospitality. "I will tell him about it. The men have all been
so busy with the shearing."

She was also distressed that she could not definitely invite Ruby for
the impending holidays. But Deb had issued her commands that Redford
was not to be saddled with a nurseless child at Christmas, when
everybody's hands would be full.

Mary was Ruby's willing foster-mother when Redford had her in
charge; she was also the kindest hostess of them all to Ruby's father.
To her was left the task of entertaining him, and she never neglected
it. Naturally, he gave her no thanks. When he said that what Ruby
needed was a mother's tender care, it was at Deborah he looked, who
never turned a hair's-breadth in his direction at any time, except when
good manners obliged her, and who was not tender to Ruby, whom she
called "that brat", and had smartly spanked on several occasions.

A beautiful woman cannot help having objectionable lovers any more than
a king can help a cat looking at him. This man--a most well-meaning,
good-hearted, useful little underbred person, typical of so large a
class in the Colonial Church--was Deb's pet aversion, and did not know
it. He was not made to see his own deficiencies as she saw them. When
first she flashed upon his dazzled vision, splendid in a scarlet dinner
gown, and carrying her regal head as if the earth belonged to her, he
really saw no reason why he, with his qualifications of comparative
youth, good looks (his sort of good looks), and notorious pulpit
eloquence, should not aspire to rush in where so many feared to tread.
His rush had been checked at the outset, but he was still unaware of
the nature of the barrier that Deb held rigid between them. He
continued to gaze at her with his ardent little black eyes as if no