said Di . CHAPTER IV . THE MANSE CHILDREN Aunt Martha might be , and was , a very poor housekeeper ; the Rev. John Knox Meredith might be , and was , a very absent-minded , indulgent man . But it could not be denied that there was something very homelike and lovable about the Glen St. Mary manse in spite of its untidiness . Even the critical housewives of the Glen felt it , and were unconsciously mellowed in judgment because of it . Perhaps its charm was in part due to accidental circumstances -- the luxuriant vines clustering over its gray , clap-boarded walls , the friendly acacias and balm-of-gileads that crowded about it with the freedom of old acquaintance , and the beautiful views of harbour and sand-dunes from its front windows . But these things had been there in the reign of Mr. Meredith 's predecessor , when the manse had been the primmest , neatest , and dreariest house in the Glen . So much of the credit must be given to the personality of its new inmates . There was an atmosphere of laughter and comradeship about it ; the doors were always open ; and inner and outer worlds joined hands . Love was the only law in Glen St. Mary manse . The people of his congregation said that Mr. Meredith spoiled his children . Very likely he did . It is certain that he could not bear to scold them . `` They have no mother , '' he used to say to himself , with a sigh , when some unusually glaring peccadillo forced itself upon his notice . But he did not know the half of their goings-on . He belonged to the sect of dreamers . The windows of his study looked out on the graveyard but , as he paced up and down the room , reflecting deeply on the immortality of the soul , he was quite unaware that Jerry and Carl were playing leap-frog hilariously over the flat stones in that abode of dead Methodists . Mr. Meredith had occasional acute realizations that his children were not so well looked after , physically or morally , as they had been before his wife died , and he had always a dim sub-consciousness that house and meals were very different under Aunt Martha 's management from what they had been under Cecilia 's . For the rest , he lived in a world of books and abstractions ; and , therefore , although his clothes were seldom brushed , and although the Glen housewives concluded , from the ivory-like pallor of his clear-cut features and slender hands , that he never got enough to eat , he was not an unhappy man . If ever a graveyard could be called a cheerful place , the old Methodist graveyard at Glen St. Mary might be so called .
The new graveyard , at the other side XXXXX the Methodist church , was a neat and proper and doleful spot ; but the old one had been left so long to Nature 's kindly and gracious ministries that it had become very pleasant .
For after as at before in of on over with