THE STEADFAST HEART
lived his wife, tall, spare, with lovely white hair crowning distinguished features—a woman of whom, at first glance, one said, “She comes of good family.” Indeed she did come of good family, for, if Jethro could boast of his father, General Canfield, she could point to her Uncle Wilworth, sometime ambassador to Spain!
In Rainbow, to be intimate with the Canfields was a mark of social position, for, though Jethro was approachable, even to sitting with the loafers in front of the post office, his wife was not. She was always the same, kindly, dignified, turning a cold shoulder upon anything or anybody tainted with the vulgar or whose antecedents would not bear scrutiny. She hardly concealed a fierce pride in her blood and lineage. With her family was a passion and a religion—and this religion she inculcated daily in her granddaughter Lydia.
Angus and Bishwhang climbed the hill and were passing the Canfield house—adding to their pleasure by dragging a stick along the pickets of the fence…. Inside the fence, close by the house, they saw a boy and girl—the same children Angus had met at the drug store on the day when Wilkins bought his new clothes.
“There’s Mal Crane,” whispered Bishwhang. “His pa’s prosecutin’ attorney.”
Angus increased his pace, for young Crane had been conspicuous among his tormentors,
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