ding-ring, just to get used to them and
to feel a little more married.--No: I can't, after all, for there is
father driving up the hill now, and he may come into the house. What
brings him home at this hour?"

"I was expecting him every moment"; and Waitstill rose and stirred the
fire. "He took the pung and went to the Mills for grain."

"He hasn't anything in the back of the pung--and, oh, Waity! he is
standing up now and whipping the horse with all his might. I never saw
him drive like that before: what can be the matter? He can't have seen
my wedding-ring, and only three people in all the world know about my
being married."

Waitstill turned from the window, her heart beating a little faster.
"What three people know, three hundred are likely to know sooner or
later. It may be a false alarm, but father is in a fury about something.
He must not be told the news until he is in a better humor!"

XXVIII. PATTY IS SHOWN THE DOOR

DEACON BAXTER drove into the barn, and flinging a blanket over the
wheezing horse, closed the door behind him and hurried into the house
without even thinking to lay down his whip.

Opening the kitchen door and stopping outside long enough to kick the
snow from his heavy boots, he strode into the kitchen and confronted
the two girls. He looked at them sharply before he spoke, scanning their
flushed faces and tear-stained eyes; then he broke out savagely:--

"Oh! you're both here; that's lucky. Now stan' up and answer to me.
What's this I hear at the Mills about Patience,--common talk outside the
store?"

The time had come, then, and by some strange fatality, when Mark was too
far away to be of service.

"Tell me what you heard, father, and I can give you a better answer,"
Patty replied, hedging to gain time, and shaking inwardly.

"Bill Morrill says his brother that works in New Hampshire reports you
as ridin' through the streets of Allentown last Monday with a young
man."

There seemed but one reply to this, so Patty answered tremblingly: "He
says what's true; I was there."

"WHAT!" And it was plain from the Deacon's voice that he had really
disbelieved the rumor. A whirlwind of rage swept through him and shook
him from head to foot.

"Do you mean to stan' there an' own up to me that you was thirty miles
away from home with a young man?" he shouted.

"If you ask me a plain question, I've got to tell you the truth, father:
I was."

"How dare you carry on like that and dra