"What was in your letter, Hal?"
"Humph! It couldn't be called a letter. From anybody else I would have thought it insulting."
"Not from him, dear. He couldn't insult anybody. He'd not have the heart to do it. Do you mind telling?"
"Not a bit. I dare say you could take example by it too. For it was a sort of sermon in few words,—'The perfection of a man is the stature of his soul.' That's all."
"I don't see yet just what it means, but I think it is that you shouldn't mind being lame. That you should let your soul grow so big you would forget your poor legs, and other folks would forget them too."
Nothing more was said, and even Amy felt that they had had enough of "sermons" for one day, and it was a relief to the thoughtfulness upon them all to reach Bareacre, and to see Cleena, with Fayette beside her, waiting to welcome them.
"Hal, isn't it odd? The poorer we are the more folks we have. Fayette means to live there with us, and so, it seems, do all the little Joneses. My! Who is that?"
"A scarecrow, I should think. Nobody I ever saw before."
Seated upon a rocking-chair which she had herself brought out from the house was a young girl of about Amy's age, though from her dress and manner she might have been at least several years older. Amy caught a vision of something very gay and brilliant, rivalling the forests upon the hillsides in variety of tint, but never in their harmony.