"My wedding is put off for a month; now that settles it. I don't want
to say another word about it." Madelon went into the pantry.

Luke sent his old voice, shrill and penetrating as a baby's, after
her. "They say 'tain't luck to have a weddin' put off. 'Ain't ye
afeard he'll give ye the slip?"

Madelon made no reply. There was a rattle of dishes in the pantry.

Old Luke waited a moment; then raised his shrill, infantile voice
again. "If this feller gives ye the slip, ye can jest hang up yer
fiddle; ye won't git t'other one back. Parson Fair's gal's got 'nough
fine feathers comin' from Boston to fit out the Queen of England,
they say."

Madelon said nothing.

"D'ye hear?" called old Luke; but he got no reply. "Dexter Beers says
a hull passel of stuff come up from Boston on the stage yesterday.
Saturday," persisted old Luke, "Mis' Beers she see an eend of blue
satin a-stickin' out of one of the bundles."

Old Luke waited again, with sharp eyes on the pantry. He could see
therein a fold of Madelon's indigo-blue petticoat, and could hear the
click of a spoon against a dish; that was all.

Old Luke tried his last prod of aggravation. "Folks air sayin' down
to the store that mebbe there was some truth, arter all, in what you
said 'bout the stabbin', an' mebbe that's the reason Lot is a puttin'
off the weddin'," piped old Luke. He chuckled slyly to himself, but
sobered suddenly, and cowered in his chair before Madelon.

She came out of the pantry with a rush, and stood before him, her
eyes blazing. "There _was_ truth in what I said, after all!" she
cried. "The truth's the truth, whether there's folks to believe it or
not, and I spoke it, and you can tell them so at the store."

Old Luke shrank before her. His old body seemed to cease to shape his
clothes. He looked up at her with scared eyes.

"And the reason I have told for the wedding being postponed is the
truth, too," continued Madelon. "I did stab Lot Gordon, and he knows
I did, though he won't own it, and he's bound to stab me back my
whole life. And we shall be married in a month fast enough--you
needn't worry, Uncle Luke Basset."

Madelon stood over the old man a minute, quivering with impatience
and utterly reckless anger and scorn, and he shrank before her with
scared eyes, and yet a lurking of his malicious grin about his mouth.
Then she made a contemptuous gesture, as if she would brush him out
of her consciousness altogether, and went away out of th