doorstep in
a sort of dazed inertia, occasioned by the shock of the household's
sudden and somewhat perplexing return to its week-day atmosphere just as
they had adjusted themselves to the low Sabbatic temperature engendered
by the minister's presence.

The girl had two tightly braided wisps of hair in varying hues of
corn-silk, curving together at the ends like the mandibles of a beetle.
She turned when her father spoke, and looked from him to her mother with
a round, blue-eyed stare from under her bulging forehead. The boy's
stolid head was thrown back a little, so that his fat neck showed two
sunburned wrinkles below his red curls. His gingham apron parted at the
topmost button, disclosing a soft, pathetic little back, and his small
trousers were hitched up under his arms, the two bone buttons which
supported them staring into the room reproachfully, as if conscious of
the ignominy of belonging to masculine garb under the feminine eclipse
of an apron.

Mrs. Randall bent a troubled gaze upon her offspring, as if expecting
to see them wilt visibly under their father's irreverence.

"Mary Frances," she said anxiously, "run away and show little brother
the colts."

The girl got up and took her brother's hand.

"Come on, Wattie," she said in a small, superior way, very much as if
she had added: "These grown people have weaknesses which it is better
for us to pretend not to know. They are going to talk about them."

Mrs. Randall waited until the two little figures idled across the
dooryard before she spoke.

"I don't think you ought to act the way you do, Elick, just because you
don't like Mr. Turnbull; it ain't right."

The man dropped his chin doggedly, and fed himself without lifting his
elbows from the table.

"I can't always manage to be at home when folks come a-visiting," he
said in his gruff, tangled voice.

"You was at church on Sabbath when Mr. Turnbull gave out the pastoral
visitations: he knew that as well as I did. I couldn't say a word
to-day. I just had to set here and take it."

"No, you didn't, Matilda: you didn't have to stay any more than I did."

"Elick!"

The woman's voice had a sharp reproof in it. He had touched the
Calvinistic quick. She might not reverence the man, but the minister was
sacred.

"Well, I can't help it," persisted her husband obstinately. "You can
take what you please off him. I don't want him to say anything to me."

"Oh, he didn't _say_ anything, Elick. What was