A little more talk about that matter of liking people, Ruth was destined to hear; and it developed ideas that bewildered her. It chanced that Flossy Shipley came in for a little chat with Ruth, over the recent astounding news connected with their mutual friend, Marion. It chanced, also, that the new-comers were both up stairs for the evening, Mrs. Erskine being one of those persons who indulge in frequent sick-headaches, during which time her daughter Susan was her devoted slave. So Judge Erskine sat with his daughter, book in hand, because conversation between them was now of necessity on such trying subjects that they mutually avoided it; but he rarely turned a leaf; and he greeted Flossy Shipley with a smile of pleasure, and asked, almost pleadingly, if he might stay and listen to their gossip. Very glad assent, Flossy gave, and emphasized it by talking to Ruth with as much apparent freedom as though he were absent.
“I like it,” she said, speaking of Marion. “I think she will make such a perfectly splendid minister’s wife.”
Flossy still dealt largely in superlatives, and paid very little attention to the grammatical position of her adjectives. “I am almost sorry that I am not going to live here, so I could have the benefit of her; she will be just as full of helpful plans for people! And when she gets in a position to influence them you will see how much good she can do. Ruth, were you very much surprised?”
“Greatly so. I imagined that she did not even admire Dr. Dennis very much. I don’t know that she ever gave me reason to think so, except by being silent sometimes, when I expected her to speak; but of course that is accounted for now. Isn’t the marriage sudden?”
“More sudden than they had planned,” Flossy said. “Dr. Dennis found it necessary to be absent just then on a matter of business, and to go West, just in the direction they had proposed to go together, and he was obliged to be absent for some time, which would give him little chance for vacation later in the season, and, in short,” said Flossy, with a bright smile, “I think if they would own it, they were very lonely, and very anxious to enjoy each other’s society, and thought they were wasting time, and set about finding reasons why they should change their plans. You know reasons can almost always be found for things, when we are very anxious to find them!”
“Is that so!” Judge Erskine asked, looking up from his book, and speaking in so earnest a tone that both girls turned toward him inquiringly. “Do you mean to say that if one were anxious to change—well, say his opinion of a person, he could bring himself to do it on reasonable grounds?”
It was a curious question, and to Ruth it was a very embarrassing one. Her cheeks flushed painfully, and her eyes drooped to the bit of fancy work which lay idly in her lap.
“That wasn’t quite what I was thinking about,” Flossy said, gently and seriously, as one who realized that his question reached deeper than he meant her to understand. “But I do truly think, sir, that if we feel as though we ought to change our opinion of a person, we can set seriously about doing it and accomplish it.”
“In that case, you would not believe it necessary to have any enemies in this world, would you?”