John, coming from his hiding-place and going in stocking feet up the stairs, heard the outburst, and, curling his sour-looking lip, muttered: "They feel very fine over it; I hope it will last."
And the poor fellow had not the remotest idea that it would. Boy that he was, John Morgan was at war with life: he believed that it had ill-treated him; that to his fortunate elder brother had fallen all the joy, and to him all the bitterness. He was jealous because of the joy. He was not sure but he almost hated his brother's wife. Her low, clear laugh, as it rang out to him, sounded like mockery: he could almost make his warped nature believe that she was laughing at him, though she had never seen, perhaps never heard of him. If she had seen his face at that moment, doubtless her thoughts would have been of him; as it was, they revolved around the Morgan family.
"What about your sister Dorothy?" she asked her husband, diving into the bewilderments of the large trunk, in search of her toilet case.
"Dorothy is a good, warm-hearted girl, who has no—well—" and then he stopped; he did not know how to finish his sentence. It would not do to say she had no education, for she had been the best scholar in their country school, and during her last winter was reported to have learned all that the master could teach her.
She had been disappointed, it is true, that he had not known more; and Lewis had been disappointed, because he wanted her to go on, or go elsewhere, and get—what? He did not know how to name it. Something that his wife had to her very finger-tips, and something that Dorothy had not a trace of. What was the name of it? Was it to be learned from books? At least he had wanted her to try, and she had been willing enough, but Farmer Morgan had not.
"She has book-learning enough for a farmer's daughter," he had said sturdily. "She knows more about books now than her mother ever did; and if she makes one-half as capable a woman, she will be ahead of all the women there are nowadays."
So Dorothy had packed away her books, and settled down at her churning and baking and dish-washing; she took it quietly, patiently. Lewis did not know whether the disappointment was very great or not; in truth he knew very little about her. Of late he had known almost nothing of home, until within the last year failing health and the necessity for outdoor life had changed all his plans and nearly all his hopes in life.
Louise waited for a completion of the unfinished sentence, but her husband seemed unable to add to it. He bent over the valise and gave himself to the business of unpacking, with a puzzled air, as though he were trying to solve a problem that eluded him. His wife tried again.
"Lewis, why is she not a Christian?"
Now, indeed, he dropped the coat that he was unrolling, and, rising up, gave the questioner the full benefit of his troubled eyes. He was under the impression that he was pretty well acquainted with his wife; yet she certainly had the fashion of asking the most strange-sounding questions, perplexing to answer, and yet simple and straightforward enough in their tone.