"You are willing to share her with her father even if you do adopt her?" he asked.
I did not understand his manner, but I told him I did not think I had any right to deprive her of her father's affection or him of hers if I adopted her a dozen times over.
The Deacon made no answer. His face was graver, and for some time we sat without further word.
"Tom Webbe isn't as bad as he seems, Miss Ruth," Deacon Daniel said at length. "If you had to live with his mother, I guess you'd be ready to excuse him for 'most anything. His father never had the spunk to say boo to a goose, and Mrs. Webbe has bullied him from the time we were boys. He's as good as a man can be, but it's a pity he don't carry out Paul's idea of being ruler in his own house."
"Paul was a bachelor like you, Deacon Daniel," I answered, rather saucily; "and neither of you knows anything about it."
He grinned, but only added that Tom had been nagged into most of his wildness.
"I'm not excusing him," he went on, apparently afraid that he should seem to be condoning iniquity; "but there's a good deal to be said for him. Aunt Naomi says he ought to be driven out of decent society, but Tom Webbe never did a mean thing in his life."
I was rather surprised to hear this defense from Deacon Richards, but I certainly agreed with him. Tom's sin makes me cringe; but I realize that I'm not capable of judging him, and he certainly has a good deal of excuse for whatever evil he has fallen into.
June 2. One thing more which Deacon Richards said has made me think a good deal. He asked me what Tom had meant to do about the child if its mother lived. I told him Julia had been willing for me to have baby in any case. He thought in silence a moment.
"I don't believe," he said, "Tom ever meant to live with that woman. He must have married her to clear his conscience."