some day. Only don't--don't imagine people aren't your
friends. If you'd only think, you'd see how jolly kind people have been
to you over and over again. Didn't you ever wonder how you got off so
well after trying to burn down the works? You must have. Anyway, it
showed you'd got plenty of good friends, surely?"

"It didn't matter to me. I'd have gone to prison. I don't care what they
do to me. They can't make me feel different."

"Well, leave it. We've had a good day and you needn't quarrel with me,
at any rate."

"I don't know that. You're his friend."

"You surely don't want to quarrel with all his friends as well as him?
We are going to be friends, anyway, and have some more good times
together. I like you."

"I thought I liked you," he said, "but you called me a little fool."

"That's nothing. You were a little fool just now. We're all fools
sometimes. I've been a fool to-day, myself. You're a little fool to hate
anybody. What good does it do you to hate?"

"It does do me good; and if I didn't hate him, I should hate myself,"
the boy declared.

"Well, it's better to hate yourself than somebody else. It's a good sign
I should think if we hate ourselves. We ought to hate ourselves more
than we do, because we know better than anybody else how hateful we can
be. Instead of that, we waste tons of energy hating other people, and
think there's nobody so fine and nice and interesting as we are
ourselves."

"Mister Churchouse says the less we think about ourselves the better.
But you've got to if you've been ill-used."

In the dusk twinkled out a glow-worm beside the hedge, and they stopped
while Abel picked it up. Gradually he grew calmer, and when they parted
he thanked her for her goodness to him.

"It's been a proper day, all but the end," he said, "and I will like you
and be your friend. But I won't like my father and be his friend,
because he's bad and served mother and me badly. You may think I don't
understand such things, but I do. And I never will be beholden to him as
long as I live--never."

He left her at the outer gate of his home and she drove on and
considered him rather hopelessly. He had some feeling for beauty on
which she had trusted to work, but it was slight. He was vain, very
sensitive, and disposed to be malignant. As yet reason had not come to
his rescue and his emotions, ill-directed, ran awry. He was evidently
unaware that his father had so far saved the situation for him. What
wo