“No, only outside pleasantnesses. That is, they answer. Sometimes when you are down deep in the heart of things, you cannot take quite so much pains with the finishing. Not but what I consider finishing a great deal. Clean paths beautify a garden so much, but I have seen people just hoe off the tops and sprinkle gravel or sand over them. The weeds spring up after a rain.”
“Has not Louis the outside and inside faults as well?” asked Fan.
“Yes. Only his weeds are seldom covered up. Some folks never can cover up anything. He cannot be good outside until he has killed the weeds inside. Stuart may be fair all his life without any fighting.”
“He is good-tempered;” I subjoined.
“He has a pleasant, sunny temper, perfect health, and no nerves to speak of. It is no effort for him to be jolly. He is gentlemanly by instinct, he likes to be in the centre, shooting rays in every direction. Is it wonderful if somebody comes within their radius? The somebody may think this particular brightness is meant for him, but in an instant Stuart may wheel round and leave this very person in the dark.”
“I am glad you have some hope of Louis;” I said.
She seemed to study Fan, the great column of wisteria and me, all at the same moment.
“There are some special providences in this world, I do believe,” she began. “Mr. Duncan’s coming here was one, and your taking the boys another.”
“Which we should not have done if we had not been very poor,” said Fan with an odd pucker in her face.
“Well, we will give poverty the credit. Mr. Duncan’s visit here taught him some new ideas of duty. Not but what he would have been a just, even a kind brother in any event. But relationship counts for so little now-a-days. Very few people expect to be their brothers’ keepers. They are willing to do grand things for others, for the heathen, for some great accident that stirs up the sympathy of the whole world, but the common every day duties are tiresome.”