ul that she
has to wear a veil all the rest of her life?"

"Yes, you told me, Aunt Hitty, but, you see, I didn't get burned."

"Araminta Lee, you're going right straight to hell, just as fast as you
can get there. Perdition is yawning at your feet. Didn't that
blackmailing play-doctor come home with you?"

"Ralph," Said Araminta--and the way she spoke his name made it a
caress--"Ralph came home with me."

"I saw you comin' home," continued Miss Mehitable, with her sharp eyes
keenly fixed upon the culprit. "I saw his arm around your waist and
you leanin' your head on his shoulder."

"Yes," laughed Araminta, "I haven't forgotten. I can feel his arms
around me now."

"And at the gate--you needn't deny it, for I saw it all--he KISSED you!"

"That's right, Aunt Hitty. At his house, he kissed me, too, lots and
lots of times. And," she added, her eyes meeting her accuser's
clearly, "I kissed him."

"How do you suppose I feel to see such goin's on, after all I've done
for you?"

"You needn't have looked, Aunty, if you didn't like to see it."

"Do you know where I went when I went out? I went up to Deacon
Robinson's to lay your case before him." Miss Mehitable paused, for
the worthy deacon was the fearsome spectre of young sinners.

Araminta executed an intricate dance step of her own devising, but did
not seem interested in the advice he had given.

"He told me," went on Miss Mehitable, in the manner of a judge
pronouncing sentence upon a criminal, "that at any cost I must trample
down this godless uprising, and assert my rightful authority. 'Honour
thy father and thy mother,' the Bible says, and I'm your father and
mother, rolled into one. He said that if I couldn't make you listen in
any other way, it would be right and proper for me to shut you up in
your room and keep you on bread and water until you came to your
senses."

Araminta giggled. "I wouldn't be there long," she said. "How funny it
would be for Ralph to come with a ladder and take me out!"

"Araminta Lee, what do you mean?"

"Why," explained the girl, "we're going to be married--Ralph and I."

A nihilist bomb thrown into the immaculate kitchen could not have
surprised Miss Mehitable more. She had no idea that it had gone so
far. "Married!" she gasped. "You!"

"Not just me alone, Aunty, but Ralph and I. There has to be two, and
I'm of age, so I can if I want to." This last heresy had been learned
from Ralph, only the night bef