"But, Forrie," his sister objected, "I want you to come home with me to dinner. You haven't been to our house in a long time, not since the night you came from Binghamton and went off to Skinner's in the storm."
"Helen, dear," Young explained, apologetically, "I can't come to your house as long as Ebenezer feels toward me the way he does. You see, don't you?"
"Oh, I suppose I do, but I just can't stand it. Eb has acted badly and tried to shoulder it all off on you. But can't you overlook it, honey?"
"Why, Helen, how can I? I don't feel any too pleasant toward him, and he doesn't want to be friends, either. He pays no attention to my wishes but tries to ride rough shod over me. He regards my interest in Tess as a personal affront. He persecutes her because he thinks he's annoying me. But there, don't cry any more. You'll only make yourself ill! I think you ought to go home and lie down. You've some one else besides yourself and Eb to think of, dear girl."
"I know it," she sobbed, "and I've tried to show Ebenezer how happy we'd be if he'd forget those people down the lake and let you do what you want to. Sometimes I think he's lost his mind. I really don't know what to do."
Helen rose from her chair.
"Nor do I," replied Young.
"But, Deforrest, don't you think if you talked to Ebenezer, he'd see things differently?"
"I'm afraid not," said he, adjusting Mrs. Waldstricker's furs. "You see, Eb's always had his own way in most things, and I can't take any other position about Tess, and I won't."
"I wish you would come home with me," sighed Mrs. Waldstricker, when her brother was tucking the sleigh robe about her.
"I'm sorry I can't, Helen. You'll hear from me soon," he promised, as the sleigh moved away.
Half an hour later found the lawyer astride his horse, his fine face clouded in sorrowful thought.
He cantered along the hard packed road. Here he noted the shimmering veil of ice over some brooklet waterfall in a cleft of the hill side. There the precise punctures of a rabbit track dotted the level snow of the woods. Beyond a herd of cattle standing placidly around a straw-stack blew clouds of vapor from their steaming nostrils. The silent beauty of the hills, glistening in their frosty covering, set off to advantage the silvery sheen of the ice-laden lake. Through the trees, he caught occasional glimpses of East Hill winter-wrapped in its white mantle. Just north of the city shone the resplendence of the ice-cloaked rocks and waterfalls of Fall Creek Gorge, like a massive garniture emblazoned on the mantle's skirt. The unbroken calm of the quiet winter afternoon touched the rider's overwrought heart and awoke in him a sense of the peace and the dignity of the visible creation. The untroubled serenity and repose which all nature presented, soothed his troubled spirit. Something of the unruffled confidence expressed by Tessibel, when he'd last left her, penetrated his revery. Her words, "I know Love's everywhere the hull time," had comforted him many times, and now they came again upon their healing mission.