Verstage,
testily. "It ain't no matter to you whether Iver takes Polly
Colpus or a Royal Princess."

"I don't want him to be worried, mother, when he comes home with
having ugly girls rammed down his throat. If you begin that with
him he'll be off again."

"Oh! you know that, do you?"

"I am sure of it."

"I know what this means!" exclaimed the angry woman, losing all
command over her tongue. "It means, in plain English, just
this--'I'm going to try, by hook or by crook, to get Iver for
myself.' That's what you're driving at, hussy! But I'll put you
by the shoulders out of the door, or ever Iver comes, that you
may be at none of them tricks. Do you think that because he
baptized you, that he'll also marry you?"

Mehetabel sprang through the door with a cry of pain, of wounded
pride, of resentment at the injustice wherewith she was treated,
of love in recoil, and almost ran against the Broom-Squire. Almost
without power to think, certainly without power to judge, fevered
with passion to be away out of a house where she was so misjudged,
she gasped, "Bideabout! will you have me now--even now. Mother
turns me out of doors."

"Have you? To be sure I will," said Jonas; then with a laugh out
of the side of his mouth, he added in an undertone, "Don't seem to
want that I should set a net; she runs right into my hands. Wimen
is wimen!"

CHAPTER XI.

A SURNAME AT LAST.

When Simon Verstage learned that Mehetabel was to be married to
the Broom-Squire, he was not lightly troubled. He loved the girl
more dearly than he was himself aware. He was accustomed to see
her about the house, to hear her cheerful voice, and to be welcomed
with a pleasant smile when he returned from the fields. There was
constitutional ungraciousness in his wife. She considered it
lowering to her dignity, or unnecessary, to put on an amiable face,
and testify to him pleasure at his presence. Little courtesies are
dear to the hearts of the most rugged men; Simon received them
from Mehetabel, and valued them all the more because withheld
from him by his wife. The girl had known how to soothe him when
ruffled, she had forestalled many of his little requirements, and
had exercised a moderating influence in the house. Mrs. Verstage,
in her rough, imperious fashion, had not humored him, and many a
domestic storm was allayed by the tact of Mehetabel.

Simon had never been demonstrative in his affection, and it was
only now, when he was about