not abuse Zephine
Huntley!--for the matter of that, I had rather you did not abuse any
one--it does not pay, and there is no great fun in it; but Zephine
_specially_ not."

"Why _specially_?" cry I, breathing short and speaking again with a
quick, raised voice. "I know that it is a bad plan abusing people, you
need not tell me _that_, I know it as well as you do, and I never did it
at home, before I married, _never_!--none of them ever accused me of
it--I was always quite good-natured about people, _quite_; but why _she
specially_? why is she to be more sacred than any one else?"

"It is an old story," he answers, passing his hand across his forehead
with what looks to me like a rather weary gesture and sighing, "I do not
know why I did not tell you before--did not I ever?--no, by-the-by, I
remember I never did; well, I will tell you now, and then you will
understand!"

"Do not!" cry I, passionately, putting my fingers in my ears, and
growing scarlet, while the tears rush in mad haste to my eyes, for I
imagine that I well know what is coming. "I do not want to hear! I had
rather not! I _hate_ old stories." He looks at me in silent dismay. "I
mean," say I, seeing that some explanation is needed, "that I know all
about it!--I have heard it already! I have been told it."

"Been told it? By whom?"

"Never mind by whom!" reply I, removing my fingers from my ears, and
covering with both hot hands my hotter face. "I _have_ been told it! I
_have_ heard it, and, what is more, I _will not hear it again_!"

CHAPTER XXXVI.

When I rose this morning, I did not think that I should have cried
before night; indeed, nothing would have seemed to me so unlikely. Cry!
on the day of Roger's first back-coming! absurd! And yet now the morning
is still quite young, and I have wept abundantly.

I am always rather good at crying. Tears with me do not argue any very
profound depth of affliction. My tears have always been somewhat near my
eyes, a fact well known to the boys, whom my pearly drops always leave
as stolid and unfeeling as they found them. But the case is different
with Roger. Either he is ignorant, or he has forgotten the facility with
which I weep, and his distress is proportioned to his ignorance.

My eyes are dried again now, though they and my nose still keep a brave
after-glow; and Roger and I are at one again. But, for my part, on this
first day, I think it would have been pleasanter if we had never been at
tw