isunderstanding between
herself and Ezra.

"Even when he was young," she told her listener often, "he was shy and
proud. And he would think I had treated him as though he had been the
dirt beneath my feet. I did. I did. He will never forgive me. Never,
never."

She always cried afresh tempestuously at this, but when the first
passion of her grief had worn itself out she came back to her story and
lauded Ezra without stint. He was proud, oh yes, he was proud, but then
it was not in a way to hurt anybody. He joined in the sports of the
other young men when she was quite a girl, a mere chit of a thing, my
dear, and he was master of them all. Then Ruth chimed in. And so was
Reuben now. Reuben was not like the rest of them. He was their master
in everything, and everybody who was old enough to remember said that he
was more like his uncle than like his father even. The duet of praise,
accompanied by the old maid's tears, murmured along for an hour.

"You will meet him now?" Ruth suggested, rather timidly. "You will be
friends again?"

"We could never bear to meet each other," cried Rachel. "How could I
come before him?" Then, "I must go away."

"No, no," Ruth pleaded, "you must not go away. You must stay here. You
must be friends again. What shall we tell him, dear? He has found the
letter at last, and he sends to you. Can you let him think that you are
still against him?"

"No," said Rachel, almost wildly. "You will tell him I went away because
I could not bear to see him. I ought to have known him too well to have
thought so basely of him."

"It was his duty to speak to you. It was less your fault than his. It
was nobody's fault. It was a disaster." Ruth thought poorly of Ezra's
tactics as a lover, but she was not bent on expressing her own opinions.
Reuben would never have acted in such a way. He would have known at
least whether his letter had been received or no. Would any _man_ take
silent contempt as a final answer from the woman he loved? It was the
man's real business to come conquering, whatever airs of gentleness he
might wear. And animated by these reflections the girl became filled
with impatience at the old maid's self-upbraidings. She was sorry, sorry
with all her heart, for both, but if there were fault at all it lay
on Ezra's side. "I shall see him in the morning," she said, finally,
thinking of Reuben. "He will go to his uncle."

"Child," said Aunt Rachel, with the beginning of a return to her old