ubservience to his
desire to increase his popularity; but now he fancied that where once he
had been served as a king by all these female attendants, he was simply
being "pestered" as a punishment for his past behavior with Blossy. Ah,
with its surprising ending that had been a humiliating affair; and he
felt too that he would be long in forgiving Mrs. Darby for not having
confided to him her actual intentions. Now he was afraid to be decently
courteous to one of the sisters for fear that they might accuse him of
light dalliance again; and he scarcely ever addressed the new member who
came to take Blossy's little room, for he had been cut to the quick by
her look of astonishment when she was told that he belonged there.

In his mental ferment the old man began to nag at Angy. Sad though it is
to confess of a hero honestly loved, Abraham had nagged a little all his
married life when things went wrong. And Angeline, fretted and nervous,
herself worried almost sick over Father's condition, was guilty once in
a while out of the depths of her anxiety of nagging back again. So do
we hurt those whom we love best as we would and could hurt no other.

"I told yer I never could stand it here amongst all these dratted
women-folks," Abe would declare. "It's all your fault that I didn't go to
the poorhouse in peace."

"I notice yew didn't raise no objections until yew'd lived here a year,"
Angy would retort; but ignoring this remark, he would go on:

"It's 'Brother Abe' this an' 'Brother Abe' that! as ef I had thirty
wives a-pesterin' me instid of one. I can't kill a fly but it's 'Brother
Abe, lemme bury him fer yew.' Do yer all think I be a baby?" demanded
the old gentleman with glaring eye. "I guess I'm able ter do somethin'
fer myself once in a while. I hain't so old as some folks might think,"
he continued with superb inconsistence. "I be a mere child compared with
that air plagued Nancy Smith."

It took very little to exhaust Angy's ability for this style of
repartee, and she would rejoin with tender but mistaken efforts to
soothe and comfort him:

"Thar, thar, Father! don't git excited neow. Seems ter me ye 're a
leetle bit feverish. Ef only yew 'd take this here tansy tea."

Abraham would give one exasperated glance at the tin cup and mutter into
the depths of his beard:

"Tansy tea an' old women! Old women an' tansy tea! Tansy tea be durned!"

Abe failed perceptibly during the summer, grew feebler as the autumn
win