n crew. Perhaps a night outdoors will
teach you who's master in this house, you imperdent, shameless girl!
We'll try it, anyway!" And with that he banged down the window and
disappeared, gibbering and jabbering impotent words that she could hear
but not understand.

Waitstill was almost stunned by the suddenness of this catastrophe. She
stood with her feet rooted to the earth for several minutes and then
walked slowly away out of sight of the house. There was a chair beside
the grindstone under the Porter apple tree and she sank into it, crossed
her arms on the back, and bowing her head on them, burst into a fit of
weeping as tempestuous and passionate as it was silent, for although her
body fairly shook with sobs no sound escaped.

The minutes passed, perhaps an hour; she did not take account of time.
The moon went behind clouds, the night grew misty and the stars faded
one by one. There would be rain to-morrow and there was a great deal of
hay cut, so she thought in a vagrant sort of way.

Meanwhile Patty upstairs was in a state of suppressed excitement and
terror. It was a quarter of an hour before her father settled him-self
in bed; then an age, it seemed to her, before she heard his heavy
breathing. When she thought it quite safe, she slipped on a print
wrapper, took her shoes in her hand, and crept noiselessly downstairs,
out through the kitchen and into the shed. Lifting the heavy bar that
held the big doors in place she closed them softly behind her, stepped
out, and looked about her in the darkness. Her quick eye espied in the
distance, near the barn, the bowed figure in the chair, and she flew
through the wet grass without a thought of her bare feet till she
reached her sister's side and held her in a close embrace.

"My darling, my own, own, poor darling!" she cried softly, the tears
running down her cheeks. "How wicked, how unjust to serve my dearest
sister so! Don't cry, my blessing, don't cry; you frighten me! I'll take
care of you, dear! Next time I'll interfere; I'll scratch and bite; yes,
I'll strangle anybody that dares to shame you and lock you out of the
house! You, the dearest, the patientest, the best!"

Waitstill wiped her eyes. "Let us go farther away where we can talk,"
she whispered.

"Where had we better sleep?" Patty asked. "On the hay, I think, though
we shall stifle with the heat"; and Patty moved towards the barn.

"No, you must go back to the house at once, Patty dear; father might