us an' redic'lous."

"Why, Aurely, hesh up," exclaimed her husband, startled from his wonted
leniency. "I hev never hearn ye talk in sech a key,--yer voice sounds
plumb out o' tune. I be plumb sorry, Jube, ez I spoke ter you uns 'bout
a meracle at all. But I frar consider'ble nettled by yer words, ye
see,--'kase I know I be a powerful, lazy, shif'less cuss----"

"Ye know a lie, then," his helpmate interrupted promptly.

"Why, Aurely, hesh up,--ye--ye--_woman_, ye!" he concluded injuriously.
Then resuming his remarks to Kennedy, "I know I _do_ fool away a deal of
my time with the fiddle----"

"The sound of it is like bread ter me,--

"I couldn't live without it," interposed the unconquered Aurelia.
"Sometimes it minds me o' the singin' o' runnin' water in a lonesome
place. Then agin it minds me o' seein' sunshine in a dream. An'
sometimes it be sweet an' high an' fur off, like a voice from the sky,
tellin' what no mortial ever knowed before,--an' _then_ it minds me o'
the tune them angels sung ter the shepherds abidin' in the fields. I
_couldn't_ live without it."

"Woman, hold yer jaw!" Basil proclaimed comprehensively. Then, renewing
his explanation to Kennedy, "I kin see that I don't purvide fur my
fambly ez I ought ter do, through hatin' work and lovin' to play the
fiddle."

"I ain't goin' ter hear my home an' hearth reviled." Aurelia laid an
imperative hand on her husband's arm. "Ye know ye couldn 't make more
out'n sech ground,--though I ain't faultin' our land, neither. We uns
hev enough an' ter spare, all we need an' more than we deserve. We don't
need ter ax a meracle from the skies ter stay our souls on faith, nor a
sign ter prove our grace."

"Now, _now, stop_, Aurely!--I declar', Jube I dunno what made me lay my
tongue ter sech a word ez that thar miser'ble benighted meracle! I be
powerful sorry I hurt yer feelin's, Jube; folks seekin' salvation git
mightily mis-put sometimes, an'----"

"_I_ don't want ter hear none o' yer views on religion," Kennedy
interrupted gruffly. An apology often augments the sense of injury. In
this instance it also annulled the provocation, for his own admission
put Bedell hopelessly in the wrong. "Ez a friend I war argufyin' with ye
agin' yer waste o' time with that old fool fiddle. Ye hev got wife an'
children, an' yit not so well off in this world's gear ez me, a single
man. I misdoubts ef ye hev hunted a day since the craps war laid by, or
hev got a pound o' jerked ve