accumulation of new and understood truths--most reasonable and sane
truths. Forty pounds she gained in twelve weeks. She had never weighed
over one hundred and twenty-five. She has never weighed less than one
hundred and forty-five since, and, as she is five feet eight, her one
hundred and forty-five pounds brought her a new symmetry which, with
her high-bred face, transformed the waxen invalid into an attractive
beauty. She learned to do manual work. She learned to use every muscle
the Lord had given her, every day she lived. An appetite unwhipped by
condiments or unstimulated by artifice, an appetite for wholesome
food, has made eating a satisfaction she never knew in the old days.

This was ten years ago. Many changes have come in the Rivers'
household, the most far-reaching of which is probably the revolution
which shook its culinary department from center to circumference. What
saved daughter must be good for them all. Father is less portly, more
active, less ruddy. Some of the color he lost was found by the mother.
Aunt Melissa disappears into her gloom-days but rarely, and has
smiling hours unthought in the past. And Ruth has proven that the
mystery was adequately solved. She married the kind of man so
excellent a woman should have, and went through the trying weeks of
her motherhood and has cared for her boy through the demanding months
of early childhood without a complication. And all this in the face of
Aunt Melissa's reiterated forebodings!




CHAPTER IX

THE MAN WITH THE HOE