That's the long and short of it between us." And thereupon she marched out of the room, her head very high, her shoulders very square, and her back very straight.

Helmsley watched her dignified exit with a curious sense of half-amused contrition.
"What odd creatures some women are!" he thought.

"Here's this sharp-tongued, warm-hearted hostess of a roadside inn quite angry because, apparently, an old tramp won't stay and do incompetent work for her! She knows that I should make a mere boggle of her garden,--she is equally aware that I could be no use in any way on 'Feathery' Joltram's farm--and yet she is thoroughly annoyed and disappointed because I won't try to do what she is perfectly confident I can't do, in order that I shall rest well and be fed well for one or two days! Really the kindness of the poor to one another outvalues all the gifts of the rich to the charities they help to support.

It is so much more than ordinary 'charity,' for it goes hand in hand with a touch of personal feeling.
And that is what few rich men ever get,--except when their pretended 'friends' think they can make something for themselves out of their assumed 'friendship'!" He put on his hat, and plucked one of the roses clambering in at the window to take with him as a remembrance of the "Trusty Man,"-- a place which he felt would henceforward be a kind of landmark for the rest of his life to save him from drowning in utter cynicism, because within its walls he had found unselfish compassion for his age and loneliness, and disinterested sympathy for his seeming need.

Then he went to say good-bye to Miss Tranter.