"Age should mellow, should soften, should sweeten." "I suppose it should, but very often it doesn't," retorted Molly, a trifle tartly, for the sermon had bored her and she looked forward with dread to the dinner.
At her words Mrs.Mullen, who was walking a little ahead, with her skirts held up to avoid the yellow stain of the golden-rod, glanced sharply back, as she had done in church when old Adam had coughed at the wrong time and spoiled the full effect of a period.
"One reason that Orlando is so helpful to people is that he always sees so clearly just what they ought to be," she observed.

"I don't believe there's a man in the ministry or out, who has a higher ideal of woman and her duty." "But do women ever live up to his ideal of them ?" "It isn't his fault if they don't.

All he can do is to point it out to them earnestly and without ceasing." They had reached the rectory gate, where she hesitated an instant with her hand on the latch, and her head bent toward the house in a surprised and listening attitude.

"I declare, Orlando, if I didn't go off and leave that cat locked up in the parlour!" she exclaimed in horror as she hurried away.
"Yes," observed Mr.Mullen in his tenderest and most ministerial manner, "my ideal is a high one, and when I look into your face, I see reflected all the virtues I would have you reach.

I see you the perfect woman, sharing my sorrows, easing my afflictions---" Intoxicated by his imagination, he turned toward her as though he beheld the living embodiment of his eloquence.
For a minute Molly smiled up at him; then, "I wonder if your mother really locked the cat in the parlour," she rejoined demurely.
After the birthday dinner, at which Mrs.Mullen talked ceaselessly of Orlando's excellencies, while she reserved the choicest piece of meat and the fattest dumpling for his plate, Molly tied her cherry-coloured strings under her chin, and started home, with a basket of apple tarts for Reuben on her arm.