Chapter XX.
All's Well that ends Well.
"Are they going to allow you any special privileges, John," asked Robert Pearson, "about this passing meeting? You can do so, next Thursday, if you choose, but what about Ruth? she will not leave the house, she says, until she is married; so there's a nice kettle of fish for you. It's a blessed good thing I didn't have any of this bother in my day, or perhaps I'd been a bachelor still."
"There is want of unity in the meeting, and I am sorry to be the cause of it. Ruth has chosen her birthday, and I think she has suffered enough, and I am not willing to disappoint her. Surely she has been sorely tried of late—"
"And, John, my man," remarked Robert, interrupting his friend, "she'll never drop in meekness sufficient to give in, or I'm wrong. If they want to keep her in meeting, they'll have to knuckle down just a little to her, for
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