The little plump girl with the big blue eyes sighed enviously. "Oh dear! How lucky! I think it's a shame all the good things happen to you, Leslie; and he's so handsome!"
"I'm going to ask him to join our tennis club," said Leslie, looking round rather defiantly.
Leslie Graham, by virtue of the fact that her mother belonged to the reigning house of Armstrong, and her father was the richest man in Algonquin, was leader of the younger social set. But Miss Anna Baldwin of the black eyes was her most powerful rival. They were constant companions and very dear friends, and never agreed upon anything. So immediately upon Miss Graham's daring announcement that this new and very exclusive club should be entered by one not in their set, Miss Baldwin cried, "Oh, how perfectly sweet and democratic! Our milkman saved our house from burning down one morning last winter, don't you remember, Lou? We must make Mamma ask him to her next tea!"
Thereupon the group broke up into two sections, one loudly proclaiming its democratic principles, the other as vigorously upholding the necessity for drawing rigid social lines. And they all swept into the ice-cream palace, like a swarm of hot, angry bees, followed by Afternoon Tea Willie in great distress, apologising now to one side, now to the other.
Another call from his work came to Roderick the next afternoon when he paid his first visit to Doctor Leslie. The old Manse did not look just as hospitable as of old, there were no crowds on the veranda and in the orchard any more. For the foster mother of the congregation had left her children mourning, and gone to continue her good work in a brighter and better world.
Viney was still in the kitchen, however, doing all in her power to make the lonely minister comfortable. She had been away from the Manse for some years in the interval, but was now returned with a half-grown daughter to help her. Viney had left Mrs. Leslie to marry "Mahogany Bill," a mulatto from the negro settlement out in Oro. But Bill had been of no account, and after his not too sadly mourned demise, his wife, promoted to the dignified title of Mammy Viney, had returned with her little girl to the Algonquin Manse, and there she was still.
"And your father has you home at last, Roderick," said the minister, rubbing his hands with pleasure and surveying the young man's fine honest face with affection. "He has lived for this day. I hope you won't get so absorbed in your practice that you won't be able to run out to the farm often."
"Aunt Kirsty will see to that," laughed Roderick.
The minister beamed. "I'm afraid I shall get into her bad books then, for I am going to keep you here as often as possible. You are just the young man I want in the church, Roderick—one who will be a leader of the young men. Algonquin is changing," he added sadly. "Perhaps because it is growing rapidly. I am afraid there is a rather fast set of young men being developed here. It makes my heart ache to see fine young fellows like Fred Hamilton and Walter Armstrong learning to gamble, and yet that is just what is happening. There's a great work here for a strong young man with just your upbringing, my boy. We must save these lads from themselves—'Who knoweth,'" he added with a smile, "'but thou hast come to the Kingdom for such an hour.'"
There was a great deal more of the same earnest call to work, and Roderick went away conscious of a slight feeling of impatience. It was just what his father was always saying, but how was he to attend to his work, if he were to have all the responsibility of the young men of the town and all the people of Willow Lane upon him? He was inclined to think that every man should be responsible for himself. He was kind-hearted and generous when the impulse came, but he did not want to be reminded that his life's work was to be his brother's keeper. His work was to be a lawyer. He did not yet realise that in being his brother's keeper he would make of himself the best kind of lawyer.