house-keeper. I should decide
differently, perhaps, if all this were not true."

"You lie! I haven't got plenty of money!" And the Deacon struck the
table a sudden blow that made the china in the cupboard rattle. "You've
no notion what this house costs me, an' the feed for the stock, an' you
two girls, an' labor at the store, an' the hay-field, an' the taxes an'
insurance! I've slaved from sunrise to sunset but I ain't hardly been
able to lay up a cent. I s'pose the neighbors have been fillin' you full
o' tales about my mis'able little savin's an' makin' 'em into a fortune.
Well, you won't git any of 'em, I promise you that!"

"You have plenty laid away; everybody knows, so what's the use of
denying it? Anyway, I don't want a penny of your money, father, so
good-bye. There's enough cooked to keep you for a couple of days"; and
Waitstill rose from her chair and drew on her mittens.

Father and daughter confronted each other, the secret fury of the man
met by the steady determination of the girl. The Deacon was baffled,
almost awed, by Waitstill's quiet self-control; but at the very moment
that he was half-uncomprehendingly glaring at her, it dawned upon him
that he was beaten, and that she was mistress of the situation.

Where would she go? What were her plans?--for definite plans she had,
or she could not meet his eye with so resolute a gaze. If she did leave
him, how could he contrive to get her back again, and so escape the
scorn of the village, the averted look, the lessened trade?

"Where are you goin' now?" he asked, and though he tried his best he
could not for the life of him keep back one final taunt. "I s'pose,
like your sister, you've got a man in your eye?" He chose this, to him,
impossible suggestion as being the most insulting one that he could
invent at the moment.

"I have," replied Waitstill, "a man in my eye and in my heart. We should
have been husband and wife before this had we not been kept apart by
obstacles too stubborn for us to overcome. My way has chanced to open
first, though it was none of my contriving."

Had the roof fallen in upon him, the Deacon could not have been more
dumbfounded. His tongue literally clove to the roof of his mouth; his
face fell, and his mean, piercing eyes blinked under his shaggy brows as
if seeking light.

Waitstill stirred the fire, closed the brick oven and put the teapot on
the back of the stove, hung up the long-handled dipper on its accustomed
nail over