at
the company, while they looked back at him. His eyes were stolidly
defiant, but he stood well back, and almost shrank against the door.
There seemed to be impulses in Hannah's and Sylvia's faces
confronting his.

He turned to his wife. "When you comin' home?" said he.

"Oh, Cephas! I jest ran over here a minute. I--wanted to
see--if--Sylvy had any emptins. Do you want me an' Charlotte to come
now?"

Cephas turned on his heel. "I think it's about time for you both to
be home," he grunted.

Sarah Barnard arose and looked with piteous appeal at Charlotte.

Charlotte hesitated a second, then she arose without a word, and
followed her mother, who followed Cephas. They went in a procession
of three, with Cephas marching ahead like a general, across the yard,
and Sylvia and Hannah stood at a window watching them.

"Well," said Hannah Berry, "all I've got to say is I'm thankful I
'ain't got a man like that, an' you ought to be mighty thankful you
'ain't got any man at all, Sylvy Crane."

Chapter III

When Cephas Barnard and his wife and daughter turned into the main
road and came in sight of the new house, not one of them appeared to
even glance at it, yet they all saw at once that there were no
workmen about, and they also saw Barnabas himself ploughing with a
white horse far back in a field at the left of it.

[Illustration: "They came in sight of the house"]

They all kept on silently. Charlotte paled a little when she caught
sight of Barney, but her face was quite steady. "Hold your dress up a
little higher; the grass is terrible wet," her mother whispered once,
and that was all that any of them said until they reached home.

Charlotte went at once up-stairs to her own chamber, took off her
purple gown, and hung it up in her closet, and got out a common one.
The purple gown was part of her wedding wardrobe, and she had worn it
in advance with some misgivings. "I dunno but you might jest as well
wear it a few Sundays," her mother had said; "you're goin' to have
your silk dress to come out bride in. I dunno as there's any sense in
your goin' lookin' like a scarecrow all the spring because you're
goin' to get married."

So Charlotte had put on the new purple dress the day before; now it
looked, as it hung in the closet, like an effigy of her happier self.

When Charlotte went down-stairs she found her mother showing much
more spirit than usual in an altercation with her father. Sarah
Barnard stood be