ive manner was gone and she moved slowly.
She did not once look up as Araminta came in.

"Good-morning, Aunt Hitty!" cried the girl, pirouetting around the bare
floor. "Isn't this the beautifullest morning that ever was, and aren't
you glad you're alive?"

"No," returned Miss Mehitable, acidly; "I am not."

"Aren't you?" asked Araminta, casually, too happy to be deeply
concerned about anybody else; "why, what's wrong?"

"I should think, Araminta Lee, that you 'd be the last one on earth to
ask what's wrong!" The flood gates were open now. "Wasn't it only
yesterday that you broke away from all restraint and refused to make
any more quilts? Didn't you put on your best dress in the afternoon
when 't want Sunday and I hadn't told you that you could? Didn't you
pick a rose and stick it into your hair, and have I ever allowed you to
pick a flower on the place, to say nothing of doing anything so foolish
as to put it in your hair? Flowers and hair don't go together."

"There's hair in the parlour," objected Araminta, frivolously, "made up
into a wreath of flowers, so I thought as long as you had them made out
of dead people's hair, I'd put some roses in mine, now, while I'm
alive."

Miss Mehitable compressed her lips sternly and went on.

"Didn't you take a rug out of the parlour last night and spread it on
the porch, and have I ever had rugs outdoor except when they was being
beat? And didn't you sit down on the front porch, where I've never
allowed you to sit, it not being modest for a young female to sit
outside of her house?"

"Yes," admitted Araminta, cheerfully, "I did all those things, and I
put my hair up loosely instead of tightly, as you've always taught me.
You forgot that."

"No, I didn't," denied Miss Mehitable, vigorously; "I was coming to
that. Didn't you go up to Miss Evelina's without asking me if you
could, and didn't you go bareheaded, as I've never allowed you to do?"

"Yes," laughed Araminta, "I did."

"After I went away," pursued Miss Mehitable, swiftly approaching her
climax, "didn't you go up to Doctor Dexter's like a shameless hussy?"

"If it makes a shameless hussy of me to go to Doctor Dexter's, that's
what I am."

"You went there to see Doctor Ralph Dexter, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," sang Araminta, "and oh, Aunt Hitty, he was there! He was
there!"

"Ain't I told you," demanded Miss Mehitable, "how one woman went up
there when she had no business to go and got burnt so awf