“Oh, Mr. Flint!  What a shame and a sin!” called another voice.  “Oh, Mr. Flint, I’m ashamed of you!” There in the freedom of the Saturday morning sunlight stood Mary Virginia, her red Irish setter Kerry beside her.

“I came over,” said she, “to see how the baby-moths are getting on this morning, and to know if the last hairy gentleman I brought spins into a cocoon or buries himself in the ground.  And then I heard Mr. Flint—­and what he said is unkind, and untrue, and not a bit like him.  Why, everybody’s worth everything you can do for them—­only some are worth more.”

The wild wrath died out of his face.  As usual, he softened at sight of her.

“Oh, well, miss, I wasn’t thinking of the like of you—­and him,” he jerked his head at me, half apologetically, “nor young Mayne, nor the little Madame.  You’re different.”

“Why, no, we aren’t, really,” said Mary Virginia, puckering her brows adorably.  “We only seem to be different—­but we are just exactly like everybody else, only we know it, and some people never can seem to find it out—­and there’s the difference!  You see?” That was the befuddled manner in which Mary Virginia very often explained things.  If God was good to you, you got a little glimmer of what she meant and was trying to tell you.  Mary Virginia often talked as the alchemists used to write—­cryptically, abstrusely, as if to hide the golden truth from all but the initiate.

“Come and shake hands with Mr. Flint, Kerry,” said she to the setter.  “I want you to help make him understand things it’s high time he should know.  Nobody can do that better than a good dog can.”

Kerry looked a trifle doubtful, but having been told to do a certain thing, he obeyed, as a good dog does.  Gravely he sat up and held out an obedient paw, which the man took mechanically.  But meeting the clear hazel eyes, he dropped his hand upon the shining head with the gesture of one who desires to become friends.  Accepting this, Kerry reached up a nose and nuzzled.  Then he wagged his plumy tail.

“There!” said Mary Virginia, delightedly.  “Now, don’t you see how horrid it was to talk the way you talked?  Why, Kerry likes you, and Kerry is a sensible dog.”

“Yes, miss,” and he looked at Mary Virginia very much as the dog did, trustingly, but a little bewildered.

“Aren’t you sorry you said that?”

“Y-e-s, seeing you seem to think it was wrong.”

“Well, you’ll know better from now on,” said Mary Virginia, comfortingly.  She looked at him searchingly for a minute, and he met her look without flinching.  That had been the one hopeful sign, from the first—­that he never refused to meet your glance, but gave you back one just as steady, if more suspicious.

“Mr. Flint,” said Mary Virginia, “you’ve about made up your mind to stay on here with the Padre, haven’t you?  For a good long while, at any rate?  You wouldn’t like to leave the Padre, would you?”