erent. He had inherited a small house and farm from his
mother, had enjoyed a college education, and had been offered a share
in a good business in a city twelve miles away. He left Beulah because
he hated it. He left because he could not endure his father's gentle
remonstrances or the bewilderment in his stepmother's eyes. She was a
newcomer in the household and her glance seemed to say: "Why on earth
do you behave so badly to your father when you're such a delightful
chap?" He left because Deacon Todd had prayed for him publicly at a
Christian Endeavor meeting; because Mrs. Popham had circulated a
wholly baseless scandal about him; and finally because in his young
misery the only being who could have comforted him by joining her
hapless fortunes to his had refused to do so. He didn't know why. He
had always counted on Letty when the time should come to speak the
word. He had shown his heart in everything but words; what more did a
girl want? Of course, if any one preferred a purely fantastic duty to
a man's love, and allowed a scapegrace brother to foist two red-faced,
squalling babies on her, there was nothing to be said. So, in this
frame of mind he had had one flaming, passionate, wrong-headed scene
with his father, and strode out of Beulah with dramatic gestures of
shaking its dust off his feet. His father, roused for once from his
lifelong patience, had been rather terrible in that last scene; so
terrible that he had never forgiven himself, or really believed
himself fully forgiven by God, though his son had alienated half the
village and nearly rent the parish in twain by his conduct.

As for Letty, she held her peace. She could only hope that the
minister and his wife suspected nothing, and she was sure of Beulah's
point of view. That a girl would never give up a suitor, if she had
any hope of tying him to her for life, was a popular form of belief in
the community; and strangely enough it was chiefly the women, not the
men, who made it current. Now and then a soft-hearted and chivalrous
male would observe indulgently of some village beauty, "I shouldn't
wonder a mite if she could 'a' had Bill for the askin'"; but this
opinion would be met by such a chorus of feminine incredulity that its
author generally withdrew it as unsound and untenable.

It was then, when Dick had gone away, that the days had grown drab and
long, but the twins kept Letty's inexperienced hands busy, though in
the first year she had the he