hibition of courage and initiative
not common to girls of seventeen; but Waitstill was meditating a mutiny
more daring yet--a mutiny, too, involving a course of conduct most
unusual in maidens of puritan descent.

She walked back into the kitchen to find her father sitting placidly in
the rocking-chair by the window. He had lighted his corn-cob pipe, in
which he always smoked a mixture of dried sweet-fern as being cheaper
than tobacco, and his face wore something resembling a smile--a foxy
smile--as he watched his youngest-born ploughing down the hill through
the deep snow, while the more obedient Waitstill moved about the room,
setting supper on the table.

Conversation was not the Deacon's forte, but it seemed proper for
some one to break the ice that seemed suddenly to be very thick in the
immediate vicinity.

"That little Jill-go-over-the-ground will give the neighbors a pleasant
evenin' tellin' 'em 'bout me," he chuckled. "Aunt Abby Cole will run the
streets o' the three villages by sun-up to-morrer; but nobody pays any
'tention to a woman whose tongue is hung in the middle and wags at both
ends. I wa'n't intending to use the whip on your sister, Waitstill,"
continued the Deacon, with a crafty look at his silent daughter, "though
a trouncin' would 'a' done her a sight o' good; but I was only tryin'
to frighten her a little mite an' pay her up for bringin' disgrace on
us the way she's done, makin' us the talk o' the town. Well, she's gone,
an' good riddance to bad rubbish, say I! One less mouth to feed, an' one
less body to clothe. You'll miss her jest at first, on account o' there
bein' no other women-folks on the hill, but 't won't last long. I'll
have Bill Morrill do some o' your outside chores, so 't you can take on
your sister's work, if she ever done any."

This was a most astoundingly generous proposition on the Deacon's part,
and to tell the truth he did not himself fully understand his mental
processes when he made it; but it seemed to be drawn from him by a kind
of instinct that he was not standing well in his elder daughter's books.
Though the two girls had never made any demonstration of their affection
in his presence, he had a fair idea of their mutual dependence upon each
other. Not that he placed the slightest value on Waitstill's opinion of
him, or cared in the smallest degree what she, or any one else in
the universe, thought of his conduct; but she certainly did appear to
advantage when contra