een teaching in the Hartley schools when he began
courting her. She was a prim, fussy woman, born of a prim father and a
fussy mother, so what was to be expected? Her face was narrow and set,
her body and her movements almost rigid, her hair, always parted,
lifted from each side and tied on the crown, fell in stiff little
curls, the back part hanging free. Her speech, as precise as her
movements, was formed into set habit through long study of the
dictionary. She was born antagonistic to whatever existed, no matter
what it was. So surely as every other woman agreed on a dress, a
recipe, a house, anything whatever, so surely Agatha thought out and
followed a different method, the disconcerting thing about her being
that she usually finished any undertaking with less exertion, ahead of
time, and having saved considerable money.

She could have written a fine book of synonyms, for as certainly as any
one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she
changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with
ponderous circumlocution. She subscribed to papers and magazines,
which she read and remembered. And she danced! When other women
thought even a waltz immoral and shocking; perfectly stiff, her curls
exactly in place, Agatha could be seen, and frequently was seen,
waltzing on the front porch in the arms of, and to a tune whistled by
young Adam, whose full name was Adam Alcibiades Bates. In his younger
days, when discipline had been required, Kate once had heard her say to
the little fellow: "Adam Alcibiades ascend these steps and proceed
immediately to your maternal ancestor."

Kate thought of this with a dry smile as she plodded on toward Agatha's
home hoping she could see her brother at the barn, but she knew that
most probably she would "ascend the steps and proceed to the maternal
ancestor," of Adam Bates 3d. Then she would be forced to explain her
visit and combat both Adam and his wife; for Agatha was not a nonentity
like her collection of healthful, hard-working sisters-in-law. Agatha
worked if she chose, and she did not work if she did not choose.
Mostly she worked and worked harder than any one ever thought. She had
a habit of keeping her house always immaculate, finishing her cleaning
very early and then reading in a conspicuous spot on the veranda when
other women were busy with their most tiresome tasks. Such was Agatha,
whom Kate dreaded meeting, with every reason, for