"Well, don't overwork yourself. I know I am very selfish, but we do want you at home so much."
"Stannie will be home presently, you know," said Marion, consolingly.
"Stannie is Stannie and you are you," was the answer. "She doesn't fill your place at all. Betsy will be furious."
"Oh no, she won't; she will hear reason. And one thing I can tell you, Bram: we don't do justice to Gerty's good qualities at home. There is nothing she won't do for any one who is sick or in trouble, and she is the best housekeeper I ever saw."
"I know that just as well as you do," replied Bram. "You forget that she lived in the valley three years before she came here. But what was the use of her helping people in trouble, when she was tattling from one to the other, making endless mischief among the work-people and everywhere else by her gossiping? If Amity had not been just the frank, outspoken soul she is, there would have been a regular break between the families. She tried her best to make mother jealous of Cousin Helen; and failing that, she got furiously jealous herself. Oh yes, I know all her good qualities, but her tongue spoils it all. It is just like the turpentine that Betsy put into her mother's mincemeat instead of rose-water. There was very little of it, but it spoiled all the pies."
"I know," said Marion, sighing. "And yet Gerty thinks she is a Christian."
"Well, I don't see how she can.
"'If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,—'
"you know. Well, Marie, take good care of yourself and come home as soon as you can."
Certainly there was a great change in Marion's relations to the family at the valley.