?"

"Dear Annie does not realize that they are false statements, father,"
said Jane. Jane was not pretty, but she gave the effect of a long,
sweet stanza of some fine poetess. She was very tall and slender and
large-eyed, and wore always a serious smile. She was attired in a purple
muslin gown, cut V-shaped at the throat, and, as always, a black velvet
ribbon with a little gold locket attached. The locket contained a coil
of hair. Jane had been engaged to a young minister, now dead three
years, and he had given her the locket.

Jane no doubt had mourned for her lover, but she had a covert pleasure
in the romance of her situation. She was a year younger than Annie, and
she had loved and lost, and so had achieved a sentimental distinction.
Imogen always had admirers. Eliza had been courted at intervals
half-heartedly by a widower, and Susan had had a few fleeting chances.
But Jane was the only one who had been really definite in her heart
affairs. As for Annie, nobody ever thought of her in such a connection.
It was supposed that Annie had no thought of marriage, that she was
foreordained to remain unwed and keep house for her father and Benny.

When Jane said that dear Annie did not realize that she made false
statements, she voiced an opinion of the family before which Annie was
always absolutely helpless. Defense meant counter-accusation. Annie
could not accuse her family. She glanced from one to the other. In her
blue eyes were still sparks of wrath, but she said nothing. She felt, as
always, speechless, when affairs reached such a juncture. She began,
in spite of her good sense, to feel guiltily responsible for
everything--for the spoiling of the hay, even for the thunder-storm.
What was more, she even wished to feel guiltily responsible. Anything
was better than to be sure her sisters were not speaking the truth, that
her father was blaming her unjustly.

Benny, who sat hunched upon himself with the effect of one set of bones
and muscles leaning upon others for support, was the only one who spoke
for her, and even he spoke to little purpose.

"One of you other girls," said he, in a thick, sweet voice, "might have
come out and helped Annie; then she could have got the hay in."

They all turned on him.

"It is all very well for you to talk," said Imogen. "I saw you myself
quit raking hay and sit down on the piazza."

"Yes," assented Jane, nodding violently, "I saw you, too."

"You have no sense of your respo