g, and softly decorous. Neither of them spoke. Barnabas
glanced at the inner door to see if it were closed, then he caught
Charlotte's hands and kissed her.

"You shouldn't do so, Barnabas," whispered Charlotte, turning her
face away. She was as tall as Barnabas, and as handsome.

"Yes, I should," persisted Barnabas, all radiant, and his face
pursued hers around her shoulder.

"It's pretty cold out, ain't it?" said Charlotte, in a chiding voice
which she could scarcely control.

"I've been in to see our house. Give me one more kiss. Oh,
Charlotte!"

"Charlotte!" cried a deep voice, and the lovers started apart.

"I'm coming, father," Charlotte cried out. She opened the door and
went soberly into the kitchen, with Barnabas at her heels. Her
father, mother, and Aunt Sylvia Crane sat there in the red gleam of
the firelight and gathering twilight. Sylvia sat a little behind the
others, and her face in her white cap had the shadowy delicacy of one
of the flowering apple sprays outside.

"How d'ye do?" said Barnabas in a brave tone which was slightly
aggressive. Charlotte's mother and aunt responded rather nervously.

"How's your mother, Barnabas?" inquired Mrs. Barnard.

"She's pretty well, thank you."

Charlotte pulled forward a chair for her lover; he had just seated
himself, when Cephas Barnard spoke in a voice as sudden and gruff as
a dog's bark. Barnabas started, and his chair grated on the sanded
floor.

"Light the candle, Charlotte," said Cephas, and Charlotte obeyed. She
lighted the candle on the high shelf, then she sat down next
Barnabas. Cephas glanced around at them. He was a small man, with a
thin face in a pale film of white locks and beard, but his black eyes
gleamed out of it with sharp fixedness. Barnabas looked back at him
unflinchingly, and there was a curious likeness between the two pairs
of black eyes. Indeed, there had been years ago a somewhat close
relationship between the Thayers and the Barnards, and it was not
strange if one common note was repeated generations hence.

Cephas had been afraid lest Barnabas should, all unperceived in the
dusk, hold his daughter's hand, or venture upon other loverlike
familiarity. That was the reason why he had ordered the candle
lighted when it was scarcely dark enough to warrant it.

But Barnabas seemed scarcely to glance at his sweetheart as he sat
there beside her, although in some subtle fashion, perhaps by some
finer spiritual vision, not a tur