on her face had deepened.

"Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched
him?"

"Yes. Don't!"

Then Caroline reentered the room. She went up to the stove in which a
wood fire was burning--it was a cold, gloomy day of fall--and she
warmed her hands, which were reddened from recent washing in cold water.

Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door,
which was still ajar, as it did not easily shut, being still swollen
with the damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it together
with a sharp thud, which jarred the house. Rebecca started painfully
with a half exclamation.

Caroline looked at her disapprovingly.

"It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebecca," said she.

"I can't help it," replied Rebecca with almost a wail. "I am nervous.
There's enough to make me so, the Lord knows."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Caroline with her old air of sharp
suspicion, and something between challenge and dread of its being met.

Rebecca shrank.

"Nothing," said she.

"Then I wouldn't keep speaking in such a fashion."

Emma, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it ought to
be fixed, it shut so hard.

"It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days," replied
Caroline. "If anything is done to it it will be too small; there will
be a crack at the sill."

"I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to
Edward," said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice.

"Hush!" said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door.

"Nobody can hear with the door shut."

"He must have heard it shut, and----"

"Well, I can say what I want to before he comes down, and I am not
afraid of him."

"I don't know who is afraid of him! What reason is there for anybody
to be afraid of Henry?" demanded Caroline.

Mrs. Brigham trembled before her sister's look. Rebecca gasped again.
"There isn't any reason, of course. Why should there be?"

"I wouldn't speak so, then. Somebody might overhear you and think it
was queer. Miranda Joy is in the south parlour sewing, you know."

"I thought she went upstairs to stitch on the machine."

"She did, but she has come down again."

"Well, she can't hear."

"I say again, I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself. I
shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having words with poor Edward
the very night before he died. Edward was enough sight bett