ow and then," said Mrs. Trimmer. "My
husband used to, and he was as good as they make 'em, poor man. He would
eat sugar on his beefsteak, for one thing. The first time I saw him do
it I was scared. I thought he was plum crazy, but afterward I found out
it was just because he was a man, and his ma hadn't wanted him to eat
sugar when he was a boy. Mr. Bennet will get over it."

"He don't act as if he would."

"Oh yes, he will. Jim Bennet never stuck to anything but being Jim
Bennet for very long in his life, and this ain't being Jim Bennet."

"He is a very good man," said Susan with a somewhat apologetic tone.

"He's too good."

"He's too good to cats."

"Seems to me he's too good to 'most everybody. Think what he has done
for Amanda and Alma, and how they act!"

"Yes, they are ungrateful and real mean to him; and I feel sometimes
as if I would like to tell them just what I think of them," said Susan
Adkins. "Poor man, there he is, studying all the time what he can do for
people, and he don't get very much himself."

Mrs. Trimmer arose to take leave. She had a long, sallow face, capable
of a sarcastic smile. "Then," said she, "if I were you I wouldn't
begrudge him a chair in the parlor and a chance to read and smoke and
hold a pussy-cat."

"Who said I was begrudging it? I can air out the parlor when he's got
over the notion."

"Well, he will, so you needn't worry," said Mrs. Trimmer. As she went
down the street she could see Jim's profile beside the parlor window,
and she smiled her sarcastic smile, which was not altogether unpleasant.
"He's stopped smoking, and he ain't reading," she told herself. "It
won't be very long before he's Jim Bennet again."

But it was longer than she anticipated, for Jim's will was propped by
Edward Hayward's. Edward kept Jim to his standpoint for weeks, until a
few days before Christmas. Then came self-assertion, that self-assertion
of negation which was all that Jim possessed in such a crisis. He called
upon Dr. Hayward; the two were together in the little study for nearly
an hour, and talk ran high, then Jim prevailed.

"It's no use, Edward," he said; "a man can't be made over when he's cut
and dried in one fashion, the way I am. Maybe I'm doing wrong, but to
me it looks like doing right, and there's something in the Bible about
every man having his own right and wrong. If what you say is true, and
I am hindering the Lord Almighty in His work, then it is for Him to stop
me. H