How they had seen their houses and lands occupied by strangers, their religion scorned, their customs derided, their patriarchal society invaded by hollow civilization or frontier brutality--all this fortified by incident and illustration, the outcome of some youthful experience, and given with the glowing enthusiasm of conviction.

Mrs.Peyton listened with the usual divided feminine interest between subject and speaker.
Where did this rough, sullen boy--as she had known him--pick up this delicate and swift perception, this reflective judgment, and this odd felicity of expression?
It was not possible that it was in him while he was the companion of her husband's servants or the recognized "chum" of the scamp Hooker.No.But if HE could have changed like this, why not Susy?
Mrs.Peyton, in the conservatism of her sex, had never been quite free from fears of her adopted daughter's hereditary instincts; but, with this example before her, she now took heart.

Perhaps the change was coming slowly; perhaps even now what she thought was indifference and coldness was only some abnormal preparation or condition.

But she only smiled and said:-- "Then, if you think those people have been wronged, you are not on our side, Mr.Brant ?" What to an older and more worldly man would have seemed, and probably was, only a playful reproach, struck Clarence deeply, and brought his pent-up feelings to his lips.
"YOU have never wronged them.

You couldn't do it; it isn't in your nature.