t you mean by the other side, Mr. Charlton. I don't
belong to any side. I think all quarreling is unpleasant, and I hate it.
I don't think anything you say makes any change in Uncle Plausaby, while
it does make your mother unhappy."

"So you think, Miss Isabel, that I ought to go away from Wheat County and
not throw my influence on the side of right in this contest, because my
mother is unhappy?" Albert spoke with some warmth.

"I did not say so. I think that a useless struggle, which makes your
mother unhappy, ought to be given over. But I didn't want to advise you
about your duty to your mother. I was led into saying so much on that
point. I came to say something else. It does seem to me that if you could
take Katy with you, something might turn up that would offer you a chance
to influence her. And that would be better than keeping the county-seat
at Perritaut." And she got up to go in.

Charlton was profoundly touched by Isabel's interest in Katy. He rose
to his feet and said: "You are right, I believe. And I am very, very
much obliged."

And as the straightforward Isa said, "Oh! no, that is nothing," and
walked away, Charlton looked after her and said, "What a charming woman!"
He felt more than he said, and he immediately set himself loyally to work
to enumerate all the points in which Miss Helen Minorkey was superior to
Isa, and said that, after all, gracefulness of form and elasticity of
motion and melodiousness of voice were only lower gifts, possessed in a
degree by birds and animals, and he blamed himself for feeling them at
all, and felt thankful that Helen Minorkey had those higher qualities
which would up-lift--he had read some German, and compounded his
words--up-lift a man to a higher level. Perhaps every loyal-hearted lover
plays these little tricks of self-deception on himself. Every lover
except the one whose "object" is indeed perfect. You know who that is. So
do I. Indeed, life would be a very poor affair if it were not for
these--what shall I call them? If Brown knew how much Jones's wife was
superior to his own, Brown would be neither happier nor better for the
knowledge. When he sees the superiority of Mrs. Jones's temper to Mrs.
Brown's somewhat energetic disposition, he always falls back on Mrs.
Brown's diploma, and plumes himself that at any rate Mrs. Brown graduated
at the Hobson Female College. Poor Mrs. Jones had only a common-school
education. How mortified Jones must feel when he thinks