got some butter, and fell to work with a
wooden spoon, creaming the butter and sugar in a brown wooden bowl
with swift turns of her strong white wrist. Ephraim watched her
sharply; he sat by a window stoning raisins. His mother had forbidden
him to eat any, as she thought them injurious to him; but he
carefully calculated his chances, and deposited many in his mouth
when she watched Barney; but his jaws were always gravely set when
she turned his way.

Ephraim's face had a curious bluish cast, as if his blood were the
color of the juice of a grape. His chest heaved shortly and heavily.
The village doctor had told is mother that he had heart-disease,
which might prove fatal, although there was a chance of his
outgrowing it, and Deborah had set her face against that.

Ephraim's face, in spite of its sickly hue, had a perfect healthiness
and naturalness of expression, which insensibly gave confidence to
his friends, although it aroused their irritation. A spirit of boyish
rebellion and importance looked out of Ephraim's black eyes; his
mouth was demure with mischief, his gawky figure perpetually uneasy
and twisting, as if to find entrance into small forbidden places.
There was something in Ephraim's face, when she looked suddenly at
him, which continually led his mother to infer that he had been
transgressing. "What have you been doin', Ephraim?" she would call
out, sharply, many a time, with no just grounds for suspicion, and be
utterly routed by Ephraim's innocent, wondering grin in response.

The boy was set about with restrictions which made his life
miserable, but the labor of picking over plums for a cake was quite
to his taste. He dearly loved plums, although they were especially
prohibited. He rolled one quietly under his tongue, and watched
Rebecca with sharp eyes. She could scarcely keep her face turned away
from him and her mother too.

"Say, mother, Rebecca's been cryin'!" Ephraim announced, suddenly.

Deborah turned and looked at Rebecca's face bending lower over the
wooden bowl; her black lashes rested on red circles, and her lips
were swollen.

"I'd like to know what you've been cryin' about," said Deborah. It
was odd that she did not think that Rebecca's grief might be due to
the worry over Barney; but she did not for a minute. She directly
attributed it to some personal and strictly selfish consideration
which should arouse her animosity.

"Nothing," said Rebecca, with sulky misery.

"Yes, you'v