ossibility
of our deciding to live there, for when we came home and gaily
announced that we had rented Peach Orchard, Mary's jaw fell and her lip
pouted sulkily.

This lasted during dinner. We could both see that she intended us to
notice it and question her, and when the coffee had been served and we
said she might go, she saw that she must open the ball herself, so she
fingered her apron and said:

"Missis, I shall be sorry not to go with you to Clovertown, but of all
the towns along the Hudson, that is the one I can't bear to go to!"

"Why, Mary?" I said, for the first time in my life suspecting her of
the tricks which we afterward came to know were a part of her.

"Because my oldest sister was killed by the railroad right at the
station at Clovertown, and I was the one to take her away!"

For about the ten thousandth time Mary held the trump. I felt crushed.
I could fairly picture the scene, and I knew that no one could face
such harrowing memories. As I gazed at her and she saw I was touched,
tears began to gather in her eyes, brim over and run down her pink
cheeks. I felt fairly faint and sick to think of parting with Mary.

Then something told me to probe the matter.

"When was your sister killed, Mary?" I said.

"Just twenty-two years ago come Washington's Birthday, Missis dear,"
whimpered Mary, with her apron at her eye.

I began to laugh heartlessly.

"And wasn't that the sister you fought with and hated--the one you have
told me a dozen times you were glad to know was dead?" I went on.

Mary nodded, rather sheepishly. I saw she was weakening, so I became
firm.

"Now, Mary," I said, and it was the first time I ever had spoken
sternly to her, "put that apron down, and don't let me hear another
word about your not going to Clovertown. Of course you are going! Any
grief, no matter what, could be cured in twenty-two years,--let alone a
grief which never was a grief. And you did _not_ see her after she was
dead--you told me you wouldn't go. And what made you the maddest was
having to pay the funeral expenses when she had a husband who could
have paid them if he would only work. So now, you can just stop those
onion tears," I said, marching haughtily toward the door, followed
somewhat sheepishly by the Angel, who longed to turn back and mitigate
my sternness.

The longing finally conquered him.

"Besides, Mary," he said, pacifically, turning back at the door, "we
couldn't possibly get alo