ect for your abilities has
risen even higher than before. We part in a similar frame of mind for
once."

And this he expected me to regard as a compliment.

XXVII

THE TEXT WITNESSETH

I have a grim will when I choose to exert it. After Mr. Gryce left the
hotel, I took a cup of tea with the landlady and then made a round of
the stores. I bought dimity, sewing silk, and what not, as I said I
would, but this did not occupy me long (to the regret probably of the
country merchants, who expected to make a fool of me and found it a by
no means easy task), and was quite ready for William when he finally
drove up.

The ride home was a more or less silent one. I had conceived such a
horror of the man beside me, that talking for talk's sake was
impossible, while he was in a mood which it would be charity to call
non-communicative. It may be that my own reticence was at the bottom of
this, but I rather think not. The remark he made in passing Deacon
Spear's house showed that something more than spite was working in his
slow but vindictive brain.

"There's a man of your own sort," he cried. "You won't find him doing
anything out of the way; oh, no. Pity your visit wasn't paid there.
You'd have got a better impression of the lane."

To this I made no reply.

At Mr. Trohm's he spoke again:

"I suppose that you and Trohm had the devil of a say about Lucetta and
the rest of us. I don't know why, but the whole neighborhood seems to
feel they've a right to use our name as they choose. But it isn't going
to be so, long. We have played poor and pinched and starved all I'm
going to. I'm going to have a new horse, and Lucetta shall have a dress,
and that mighty quick too. I'm tired of all this shabbiness, and mean to
have a change."

I wanted to say, "No change yet; change under the present circumstances
would be the worst thing possible for you all," but I felt that this
would be treason to Mr. Gryce, and refrained, saying simply, as he
looked sideways at me for a word:

"Lucetta needs a new dress. That no one can deny. But you had better let
me get it for her, or perhaps that is what you mean."

The grunt which was my only answer might be interpreted in any way. I
took it, however, for assent.

As soon as I was relieved of his presence and found myself again with
the girls, I altered my whole manner and cried out in querulous tones:

"Mrs. Carter and I have had a difference." (This was true. We did have a
differ