e you run to--to
_him_ with them?"

Mrs. Tidditt's hand, that grasping the handle of the molasses pitcher,
began to quiver. Her eyes, behind her steel-rimmed spectacles, winked
rapidly.

"Elizabeth Berry," she snapped, with ominous emphasis, "don't you talk
to me like that!"

"I shall talk to you as--as.... Oh, I should be ashamed to talk to you
at all. My mother--my kind, trustful, unsuspecting mother! And you--you
and he _dare_----"

Kendrick, in desperation, tried to put in a word.

"Elizabeth," he begged, "don't misunderstand. Esther hasn't been runnin'
here to tell me things. She came over to borrow some molasses from
Judah, that's all."

"Oh, stop! I tell you I heard what she said. And you were listening.
Listening! Without a word of protest. I suppose you encouraged her. Of
course you did. No doubt this isn't the first time. This may be her
usual report. Not content with--with prying into closets and--and coal
bins and--and----"

"Elizabeth!"

"Doing these things for yourself was not enough, I suppose. You must
encourage her--pay her, perhaps--to listen and whisper scandal and to
spy----"

"Stop! Stop right there!" The captain was not begging now. Even in the
midst of her impassioned outburst the young woman paused, halted
momentarily by the compelling force of that order. But she halted
unwillingly.

"I shall not stop," she declared. "I shall say----"

"You have said a whole lot too much already. And you don't mean what you
have said."

"I do! I do! Oh, I can't tell you what I think of you."

"Well," dryly, "you have made a pretty fair try at tellin' it. If it is
what you really think of me it'll do--it will be quite enough. I shan't
need any more."

He was looking at her gravely and steadily and before his look her own
gaze wavered. If they had been alone it is barely possible that ... but
they were not alone. Mrs. Tidditt was there and, by this time, as Judah
would have said, "her neck-feathers were on end" and her spurs sharpened
for battle. She hopped into the pit forthwith.

"_I_ need consider'ble more," she cackled, defiantly. "I've been called
a spy and a scandal whisperer and the Lord knows what else. Now I'll say
somethin'."

"Esther, be still."

"I shan't be still till I'm ready, not for you, Sears Kendrick, nor for
her nor nobody else. I ain't a spy, 'Liz'beth Berry, and I ain't paid by
no livin' soul. But I see what I see with the eyes the Almighty give me
to see with, and a