out of the cherry tree in my back yard and broke your arm and came
into the house to get a sand tart as usual before going home, just as
though nothing had happened, I loved you and I have loved you ever
since. And you didn't cry either!"

"I didn't cry, Aunt Jane, because I hadn't sense enough to know I'd been
hurt!"

"You were always a child of spirit! It's spirit that counts in this
life. And for all we know in the next one, too. Don't you let all these
relations of yours spoil you; I've known all the Montgomerys ever since
your great-grandfather came here from Virginia, and you please me more
than all the rest of 'em put together. Do you hear that, Amzi!"

Amzi was prepared to hear just this; he was nigh to bursting with pride,
for Mrs. King was the great lady of the community and her opinion
outweighed that of any dozen other women in that quarter of Indiana.

Montgomery is just a comfortable, folksy, neighborly town, small enough
to make hypocrisy difficult and unnecessary. In a company like this that
marked Phil's entrance upon the great little world, no real
Montgomeryite remembered who had the most money, or the costliest
automobile, or the largest house. The Madison professors, who never had
any hope of earning more than fifteen hundred dollars a year if they
lived forever, received the special consideration to which they were
entitled; and Judge Walters might be hated by most of the lawyers at the
bar for his sharp admonitions from the bench, but they all respected him
for his sound attainments and unquestioned probity. Among others who
were presented to Phil (as though they hadn't known her all her life!)
were a general and a colonel and other officers of the line, including
Captain Joshua Wilson, poet and county recorder, and the editors of the
two newspapers, and lawyers and doctors and shopkeepers, and, yes,
clerks who stood behind counters, and insurance agents and the
postmaster, all mingling together, they and their children, in the most
democratic fashion imaginable.

"We're all here," said old General Wilks, who had been a tower of
strength in the Army of the Tennessee, "and we're the best people of the
best state on earth. I claim the privilege of age, Amzi, to kiss the
prettiest girl in Indiana."

Beyond question the arrival of the William Holtons, with their niece and
nephew from Indianapolis, caused a stir. They were among the late
comers, and the curious were waiting to witness their recep