Otherwise
she must have believed them the most hopeless
assortment of reprobates and ne'er-do-wells in the
world, with veritable slaves and martyrs for wives.
This particular Tom Holt, for example, she knew to be a
kind husband, a much loved father, and an excellent
neighbor. If he were rather inclined to be lazy,
liking better the fishing he had been born for than the
farming he had not, and if he had a harmless
eccentricity for doing fancy work, nobody save Miss
Cornelia seemed to hold it against him. His wife was
a "hustler," who gloried in hustling; his family got a
comfortable living off the farm; and his strapping sons
and daughters, inheriting their mother's energy, were
all in a fair way to do well in the world. There was
not a happier household in Glen St. Mary than the
Holts'.
Miss Cornelia returned satisfied from the house up the
brook.
"Leslie's going to take him," she announced. "She
jumped at the chance. She wants to make a little money
to shingle the roof of her house this fall, and she
didn't know how she was going to manage it.
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