e and advanced
upon Ann Edwards. She grasped the arm of her chair hard, as if
bracing herself to meet a shock.

The little woman spoke. Her eyes seemed full of black sparks, her
voice shook, red spots flamed out in her cheeks. "We'll bid you
good-bye now, Cousin Ann," said she.

"Ain't you going to stay and have some supper?" asked Ann. Her manner
was at once defiant and conciliatory.

Then the little woman made her speech. All the way from her distant
village, in the rear gloom of the covered wagon, she had been
composing it. She delivered it with an assumption of calm dignity, in
spite of her angry red cheeks and her shaking voice. "Cousin Ann,"
said the little woman, "me and mine go nowhere where we are not
invited. We came to the funeral--though you didn't see fit to even
tell us when it was, and we only heard of it by accident from the
butcher--out of respect to poor Abel. He was my own second-cousin,
and our folks used to visit back and forth a good deal before he was
married. I felt as if I must come to his funeral, whether I was
wanted or not, because I know if he'd been alive he'd said to come;
but staying to supper is another thing. I am sorry for you, Cousin
Ann; we are all sorry for you in your affliction. We all hope it may
be sanctified to you; but I don't feel, and 'Lisha and the girls
don't feel, as if we could stay and eat victuals in a house where
we've been shown very plainly we ain't wanted."

Then Ann spoke, and her voice was unexpectedly loud. "You haven't any
call to think you wasn't all welcome," said she. "You live ten miles
off, and I hadn't a soul to send but Jerome, with a horse that can't
get out of a walk. I didn't know myself there'd be a funeral for
certain till yesterday. There wasn't time to send for you. I thought
of it, but I knew there wouldn't be time to get word to you in season
for you to start. You might, as long as you're a professing
Christian, Eloise Green, have a little mercy in a time like this."
Ann's voice quavered a little, but she set her mouth harder.

The large man nudged his wife and whispered something. He drew the
back of his rough hand across his eyes. The three little blue-clad
girls stood toeing in, dangling their cotton-gloved hands.

"I thought you might have sent word by the butcher," said the little
woman. Her manner was softer, but she wanted to cover her defeat
well.

"I couldn't think of butchers and all the wherewithals," said Ann,
with stern di