did color, her lips
trembled into smiles in spite of herself, her eyes were like dark
fires, shifting before her mother's, but not paling.

"Ephraim see 'em all go by half an hour ago," said her mother.

Rebecca made no reply.

"If," said her mother, "you stayed behind to see William Berry, I can
tell you one thing, once for all: you needn't do it again."

"I had to see him about something," Rebecca faltered.

"Well, you needn't see him again about anything. You might jest as
well understand it first as last: if you've got any idea of havin'
William Berry, you've got to give it up."

"Mother, I'd like to know what you mean!" Rebecca cried out,
blushing.

"Look 'round here at me!" her mother ordered, suddenly.

"Don't, mother."

"Look at me!"

Rebecca lifted her face perforce, and her mother eyed her pitilessly.
"You ain't been tellin' of him you'd have him, now?" said she. "Why
don't you speak?"

"Not--just."

"Then you needn't."

"Mother!"

"You needn't talk. You can jest make up your mind to it. You ain't
goin' to marry William Berry. Your brother has had enough to do with
that family."

"Mother, you won't stop my marrying William because Barney won't
marry his cousin Charlotte? There ain't any sense in that."

"I've got my reasons, an' that's enough for you," said Deborah. "You
ain't goin' to marry William Berry."

"I am, if you haven't got any better reason than that. I won't stand
it, mother; it ain't right!" Rebecca cried out.

"Then," said Deborah, and as she spoke she began spooning out the
toast gravy into a bowl with a curious stiff turn of her wrist and a
superfluous vigor of muscle, as if it were molten lead instead of
milk; and, indeed, she might, from the look in her face, have been
one of her female ancestors in the times of the French and Indian
wars, casting bullets with the yells of savages in her ears--"then,"
said she, "I sha'n't have any child but Ephraim left, that's all!"

"Mother, don't!" gasped Rebecca.

"There's another thing: if you marry William Berry against your
parents' wishes, you know what you have to expect. You remember your
aunt Rebecca."

Rebecca twisted her whole body about with the despairing motion with
which she would have wrung her hands, flung open the door, and ran
out of the room.

Deborah went on spooning up the toast. Ephraim had come in just as
she spoke last to Rebecca, and he stood staring, grinning with gaping
mouth.

"What's Rebecca do