It was an experience, and she was glad of it, though sorry in a way for Corliss, who played the host lamely.
But he had little need of pity.

"Any other woman--" he said to himself a score of times, looking at Frona and trying to picture numerous women he had known by his mother's teapot, knocking at the door and coming in as Frona had done.

Then, again, it was only yesterday that it would have hurt him, Blanche's rubbing her feet; but now he gloried in Frona's permitting it, and his heart went out in a more kindly way to Blanche.

Perhaps it was the elevation of the liquor, but he seemed to discover new virtues in her rugged face.
Frona had put on her dried moccasins and risen to her feet, and was listening patiently to Jake Cornell, who hiccoughed a last incoherent toast.
"To the--hic--man," he rumbled, cavernously, "the man--hic--that made--that made--" "The blessed country," volunteered the Virgin.
"True, my dear--hic.

To the man that made the blessed country.
To--hic--to Jacob Welse!" "And a rider!" Blanche cried.