Chapter III: Part I

Emarine went along the narrow hall and passed through the open door. There was something in her carriage that suggested stubbornness. Her small body had a natural backward sway, and the decision with which she set her heels upon the floor had long ago caused the readers of character in the village to aver that “Emarine Endey was contrairier than any mule.”

She wore a brown dress, a gray shawl folded primly around her shoulders, and a hat that tried in vain to make her small face plain. There was a frill of white, cheap lace at her slender throat, fastened in front with a cherry ribbon. Heavy gold earrings with long, shining pendants reached almost to her shoulders. They quivered and glittered with every movement.

Emarine was pretty, in spite of many freckles and the tightness with which she brushed her hair from her face and coiled it in a sleek knot at the back of her head. “Now, be sure you get it just so slick, Emarine,” her mother would say, watching her steadily while she combed and brushed and twisted her long tresses.

As Emarine reached the door her mother followed her down the hall from the kitchen. The house was old, and two or three loose pieces in the flooring creaked as she stepped heavily upon them.

“Oh, say, Emarine!”

“Well?”

“You get an’ bring home a dollar’s worth o’ granylated sugar, will you?”

“Well.”

“An’ a box o’ ball bluin’. Mercy, child! Your dress-skirt sags awful in the back. Why don’t you run a tuck in it?”

Emarine turned her head over her shoulder with a birdlike movement, and bent backward, trying to see the offensive sag.

“Can’t you pin it up, maw?”

“Yes, I guess. Have you got a pin? Why, Emarine Endey! If ever I see in all my born days! What are you a-doin’ with a red ribbon on you—an’ your Uncle Herndon not cold in his grave yet! A fine spectickle you’d make o’ yourself, a-goin’ the length an’ the breadth o’ the town with that thing a-flarin’ on you. You’ll disgrace this whole fambly yet! I have to keep watch o’ you like a two-year-old baby. Now, you get an’ take it right off o’ you; an’ don’t you let me ketch you a-puttin’ it on again till a respectful time after he’s be’n dead. I never hear tell o’ such a thing.”

“I don’t see what a red ribbon’s got to do with Uncle Herndon’s bein’ dead,” said Emarine.

“Oh, you don’t, aigh? Well, _I_ see. You act as if you didn’t have no feelin’.”

“Well, goin’ without a red ribbon won’t make me feel any worse, will it, maw?”

“No, it won’t. Emarine, what does get into you to act so tantalizin’? I guess it’ll look a little better. I guess the neighbors won’t talk quite so much. You can see fer yourself how they talk about Mis’ Henspeter because she wore a rose to church before her husband had be’n dead a year. All she had to say fer herself was that she liked flowers, an’ didn’t sense it ’u’d be any disrespect to her husband to wear it—seein’s he’d always liked ’em, too. They all showed her ’n a hurry what they thought about it. She’s got narrow borders on all her han’kachers, too, a’ready.”

“Why don’t you stay away from such people?” said Emarine. “Old gossips! You know I don’t care what the neighbors say—or think, either.”

“Well, _I_ do. The land knows they talk a plenty even without givin’ ’em anything to talk about. You get an’ take that red ribbon off o’ you.”

“Oh, I’ll take it off if you want I sh’u’d.” She unfastened it deliberately and laid it on a little table. She had an exasperating air of being unconvinced and of complying merely for the sake of peace.

She gathered her shawl about her shoulders and crossed the porch.

“Emarine!”

“Well?”

“Who’s that a-comin’ over the hill path? I can’t make out the dress. It looks some like Mis’ Grandy, don’t it?”

Emarine turned her head. Her eyelids quivered closer together in an effort to concentrate her vision on the approaching guest.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed her mother, in a subdued but irascible tone. “There you go—a-lookin’ right square at her, when I didn’t want that she sh’u’d know we saw her! It does seem to me sometimes, Emarine, that you ain’t got good sense.”

“I’d just as soon she knew we saw her,” said Emarine, unmoved. “It’s Miss Presly, maw.”

“Oh, land o’ goodness! That old sticktight? She’ll stay all day if she stays a minute. Set an’ set! An’ there I’ve just got the washin’ all out on the line, an’ she’ll tell the whole town we wear underclo’s made out o’ unbleached muslin! Are you sure it’s her? It don’t look overly like her shawl.”

“Yes, it’s her.”

“Well, go on an’ stop an’ talk to her, so ’s to give me a chance to red up some. Don’t ferget the ball bluin’, Emarine.”

Emarine went down the path and met the visitor just between the two tall lilac trees, whose buds were beginning to swell.

“Good mornin’, Miss Presly.”

“Why, good mornin’, Emarine. Z’ your maw to home?”

“Yes ’m.”

“I thought I’d run down an’ set a spell with her, an’ pass the news.”

Emarine smiled faintly and was silent.

“Ain’t you goin’ up town pretty early fer washday?”

“Yes ’m.”

“I see you hed a beau home from church las’ night.”

Emarine’s face flushed; even her ears grew rosy.

“Well, I guess he’s a reel nice young man, anyways, Emarine. You needn’t to blush so. Mis’ Grandy was a-sayin’ she thought you’d done offul well to git him. He owns the house an’ lot they live in, an’ he’s got five hunderd dollars in the bank. I reckon he’ll have to live with the ol’ lady, though, when he gits married. They do say she’s turrable hard to suit.”

Emarine lifted her chin. The gold pendants glittered like diamonds.

“It don’t make any difference to me whuther she’s hard to suit or easy,” she said. “I’ll have to be goin’ on now. Just knock at the front door, Miss Presly.”

“Oh, I can go right around to the back, just as well, an’ save your maw the trouble o’ comin’ to the door. If she’s got her washin’ out, I can stoop right under the clo’s line.”

“Well, we like to have our comp’ny come to the front door,” said Emarine, dryly.

It was a beautiful morning in early spring. The alders and the maples along the hill were wrapped in reddish mist. The saps were mounting through delicate veins. Presently the mist would quicken to a pale green as the young leaves unfolded, but as yet everything seemed to be waiting. The brown earth had a fresh, woody smell that caused the heart to thrill with a vague sense of ecstasy—of some delight deep hidden and inexplicable. Pale lavender “spring beauties” stood shyly in groups or alone, in sheltered places along the path. There was even, here and there, a trillium—or white lily, as the children called it—shivering on its slender stem. There were old stumps, too, hollowed out by long-spent flames into rustic urns, now heaped to their ragged rims with velvet moss. On a fence near a meadow-lark was pouring out its few, but full and beautiful, notes of passion and desire. Emarine paused to listen. Her heart vibrated with exquisite pain to the ravishment of regret in those liquid tones.

“Sounds as if he was sayin’—‘_Sweet—oh—Sweet—my heart is breaking!_’” she said; and then with a kind of shame of the sentiment in such a fancy, she went on briskly over the hill. Her heels clicked sharply on the hard road.

Before she reached the long wooden stairs which led from the high plateau down to the one street of Oregon City, Emarine passed through a beautiful grove of firs and cedars. Already the firs were taking on their little plushy tufts of pale green, and exuding a spicy fragrance. Occasionally a last year’s cone drew itself loose and sunk noiselessly into a bed of its own brown needles. A little way from the path a woodpecker clung to a tree, hammering into the tough bark with its long beak. As Emarine approached, it flew heavily away, the undersides of its wings flashing a scarlet streak along the air.

As her eyes ceased following its flight, she became aware that some one was standing in the path, waiting. A deep, self-conscious blush swept over her face and throat. “Emarine never does anything up by halves,” her mother was wont to declare. “When she blushes, she _blushes_!”

She stepped slowly toward him with a sudden stiff awkwardness.

“Oh—you, is it, Mr. Parmer?” she said, with an admirable attempt—but an attempt only—at indifference.

“Yes, it’s me,” said the young fellow, with an embarrassed laugh. With a clumsy shuffle he took step with her. Both faces were flaming. Emarine could not lift her eyes from their contemplation of the dead leaves in her path—yet she passed a whole company of “spring beauties” playing hide-and-seek around a stump, without seeing them. Her pulses seemed full of little hammers, beating away mercilessly. Her fingers fumbled nervously with the fringes on her shawl.

“Don’t choo want I sh’u’d pack your umberell fer yuh?” asked the young man, solemnly.

“Why—yes, if you want.”

It was a faded thing she held toward him, done up rather baggily, too; but he received it as reverently as if it had been a twenty-dollar silk one with a gold handle.

“Does your mother know I kep’ yuh comp’ny home from church last night?”

“Unh-hunh.”

“What ’id she say?”

“She didn’t say much.”

“Well, what?”

“Oh, not much.” Emarine was rapidly recovering her self-possession. “I went right in an’ up an’ told her.”

“Well, why can’t choo tell me what she said? Emarine, yuh can be the contrairiest girl when yuh want.”

“Can I?” She flashed a coquettish glance at him. She was quite at her ease by this time, although the color was still burning deep in her cheeks. “I sh’u’dn’t think you’d waste so much time on contrairy people, Mr. Parmer.”

“Oh, Emarine, go on an’ tell me!”

“Well”—Emarine laughed mirthfully—“she put the backs of her hands on her hips—this way!” She faced him suddenly, setting her arms akimbo, the shawl’s fringes quivering over her elbows; her eyes fairly danced into his. “An’ she looked at me a long time; then she says—‘Hunh! _You—leetle—heifer!_ You think you’re some pun’kins, don’t you? A-havin’ a beau home from meetin’.”

Both laughed hilariously.

“Well, what else ’id she say?”

“I don’t believe you want to know. Do you—sure?”

“I cross my heart.”

“Well—she said it c’u’dn’t happen more’n ev’ry once ’n so often.”

“Pshaw!”

“She did.”

The young man paused abruptly. A narrow, unfrequented path led through deeper woods to the right.

“Emarine, let’s take this catecornered cut through here.”

“Oh, I’m afraid it’s longer—an’ it’s washday, you know,” said Emarine, with feeble resistance.

“We’ll walk right fast. Come on. George! But it’s nice and sweet in here, though!”

They entered the path. It was narrow and the great trees bent over and touched above them.

There was a kind of soft lavender twilight falling upon them. It was very still, save for the fluttering of invisible wings and the occasional shrill scream of a blue-jay.

“It _is_ sweet in here,” said Emarine.

The young man turned quickly, and with a deep, asking look into her lifted eyes, put his arms about her and drew her to him. “Emarine,” he said, with passionate tenderness. And then he was silent, and just stood holding her crushed against him, and looking down on her with his very soul in his eyes. Oh, but a man who refrains from much speech in such an hour has wisdom straight from the gods themselves!

After a long silence Emarine lifted her head and smiled trustfully into his eyes. “It’s washday,” she said, with a flash of humor.

“So it is,” he answered her, heartily. “An’ I promised yuh we’d hurry up—an’ I alwus keep my promises. But first—Emarine—”

“Well?”

“Yuh must say somethin’ first.”

“Say what, Mr. Parmer?”

“‘_Mr. Parmer!_’” His tone and his look were reproachful. “Can’t choo say Orville?”

“Oh, I can—if you want I sh’u’d.”

“Well, I do want choo sh’u’d, Emarine. Now, yuh know what else it is I want choo sh’u’d say before we go on.”

“Why, no, I don’t—hunh-unh.” She shook her head, coquettishly.

“Emarine”—the young fellow’s face took on a sudden seriousness—“I want choo to say yuh’ll marry me.”

“Oh, my, no!” cried Emarine. She turned her head on one side, like a bird, and looked at him with lifted brows and surprised eyes. One would have imagined that such a thought had never entered that pretty head before.

“What, Emarine! Yuh won’t?” There was consternation in his voice.

“Oh, my, no!” Both glance and movement were full of coquettishness. The very fringes of the demure gray shawl seemed to have taken on new life and vivacity.

Orville Palmer’s face turned pale and stern. He drew a long breath silently, not once removing that searching look from her face.

“Well, then,” he said, calmly, “I want to know what choo mean by up an’ lettin’ me kiss yuh—if yuh don’t mean to marry me.”

This was an instant quietus to the girl’s coquetry. She gave him a startled glance. A splash of scarlet came into each cheek. For a moment there was utter silence. Then she made a soft feint of withdrawing from his arms. To her evident amazement, he made no attempt to detain her. This placed her in an awkward dilemma, and she stood irresolutely, with her eyes cast down.

Young Palmer’s arms fell at his sides with a movement of despair. Sometimes they were ungainly arms, but now absence of self-consciousness lent them a manly grace.

“Well, Emarine,” he said, kindly, “I’ll go back the way I come. Goodby.”

With a quick, spontaneous burst of passion—against which she had been struggling, and which was girlish and innocent enough to carry a man’s soul with it into heaven—Emarine cast herself upon his breast and flung her shawl-entangled arms about his shoulders. Her eyes were earnest and pleading, and there were tears of repentance in them. With a modesty that was enchanting she set her warm, sweet lips tremblingly to his, of her own free will.

“I didn’t mean it,” she whispered. “I was only a—a-foolin’.”

* * * * *

The year was older by a month when one morning Mrs. Endey went to the front door and stood with her body swaying backward, and one rough hand roofing the rich light from her eyes.

“Emarine ’ad ought to ’a’ got to the hill path by this time,” she said, in a grumbling tone. “It beats me what keeps her so! I reckon she’s a-standin’ like a bump on a lawg, watchin’ a red ant or a tumble-bug, or some fool thing! She’d leave her dish-washin’ any time an’ stand at the door a-ketchin’ cold in her bare arms, with the suds a-drippin’ all over her apron an’ the floor—a-listenin’ to one o’ them silly meadow-larks hollerin’ the same noise over ’n over. Her paw’s women-folks are all just such fools.”

She started guiltily and lowered her eyes to the gate which had clicked sharply.

“Oh!” she said. “That you, Emarine?” She laughed rather foolishly. “I was lookin’ right over you—lookin’ _fer_ you, too. Miss Presly’s be’n here, an’ of all the strings she had to tell! Why, fer pity’s sake! Is that a dollar’s worth o’ coffee?”

“Yes, it is; an’ I guess it’s full weight, too, from the way my arm feels! It’s just about broke.”

“Well, give it to me, an’ come on out in the kitching. I’ve got somethin’ to tell you.”

Emarine followed slowly, pinning a spray of lilac bloom in her bosom as she went.

“Emarine, where’s that spring balance at? I’m goin’ to weigh this coffee. If it’s one grain short, I’ll send it back a-flyin’. I’ll show ’em they can’t cheat this old hen!”

She slipped the hook under the string and lifted the coffee cautiously until the balance was level with her eyes. Then standing well back on her heels and drawing funny little wrinkles up around her mouth and eyes, she studied the figures earnestly, counting the pounds and the half-pounds down from the top. Finally she lowered it with a disappointed air. “Well,” she said, reluctantly, “it’s just it—just to a ’t.’ They’d ought to make it a leetle over, though, to allow fer the paper bag. Get the coffee-canister, Emarine.”

When the coffee had all been jiggled through a tin funnel into the canister, Mrs. Endey sat down stiffly and began polishing the funnel with a cloth. From time to time she glanced at Emarine with a kind of deprecatory mystery. At last she said—“Miss Presly spent the day down’t Mis’ Parmer’s yesterday.”

“Did she?” said Emarine, coldly; but the color came into her cheeks. “Shall I go on with the puddin’?”

“Why, you can if you want. She told me some things I don’t like.”

Emarine shattered an egg-shell on the side of a bowl and released the gold heart within.

“Miss Presly says once Mis’ Parmer had to go out an’ gether the eggs an’ shet up the chickens, so Miss Presly didn’t think there’d be any harm in just lookin’ into the drawers an’ things to see what she had. She says she’s awful short on table cloths—only got three to her name! An’ only six napkeens, an’ them coarse ’s anything! When Mis’ Parmer come back in, Miss Presly talked around a little, then she says—‘I s’pose you’re one o’ them spic an’ span kind, Mis’ Parmer, that alwus has a lot o’ extry table cloths put away in lavender.’”

Emarine set the egg-beater into the bowl and began turning it slowly.

“Mis’ Parmer got mighty red all of a sudden; but she says right out—‘No, I’m a-gettin’ reel short on table cloths an’ things, Miss Presly, but I ain’t goin’ to replenish. Orville’s thinkin’ o’ gettin’ married this year, an’ I guess Emarine’ll have a lot o’ extry things.’ An’ then she ups an’ laughs an’ says—‘I’ll let her stock up the house, seein’s she’s so anxious to get into it.’”

Emarine had turned pale. The egg-beater fairly flew round and round. A little of the golden foam slipped over the edge of the bowl and slid down to the white table.

“Miss Presly thinks a good deal o’ you, Emarine, so that got her spunk up; an’ she just told Mis’ Parmer she didn’t believe you was dyin’ to go there an’ stock up her drawers fer her. Says she—‘I don’t think young people ’ad ought to live with mother-in-laws, any way.’ Said she thought she’d let Mis’ Parmer put that in her pipe an’ smoke it when she got time.”

There was a pulse in each side of Emarine’s throat beating hard and full. Little blue, throbbing cords stood out in her temples. She went on mixing the pudding mechanically.

“Then Mis’ Parmer just up an’ said with a tantalizin’ laugh that if you didn’t like the a-commodations at her house, you needn’t to come there. Said she never did like you, anyways, ner anybody else that set their heels down the way you set your’n. Said she’d had it all out with Orville, an’ he’d promised her faithful that if there was any knucklin’-down to be done, you’d be the one to do it, an’ not her!”

Emarine turned and looked at her mother. Her face was white with controlled passion. Her eyes burned. But her voice was quiet when she spoke.

“I guess you’d best move your chair,” she said, “so ’s I can get to the oven. This puddin’ ’s all ready to go in.”

When she had put the pudding in the oven she moved about briskly, clearing the things off the table and washing them. She held her chin high. There was no doubt now about the click of her heels; it was ominous.

“I won’t marry him!” she cried at last, flinging the words out. “He can have his mother an’ his wore-out table cloths!” Her voice shook. The muscles around her mouth were twitching.

“My mercy!” cried her mother. She had a frightened look. “Who cares what his mother says? I w’u’dn’t go to bitin’ off my nose to spite my face, if I was you!”

“Well, I care what he says. I’ll see myself knucklin’-down to a mother-in-law!”

“Well, now, don’t go an’ let loose of your temper, or you’ll be sorry fer it. You’re alwus mighty ready a-tellin’ me not to mind what folks say, an’ to keep away from the old gossips.”

“Well, you told me yourself, didn’t you? I can’t keep away from my own mother very well, can I?”

“Well, now, don’t flare up so! You’re worse ’n karosene with a match set to it.”

“What ’id you tell me for, if you didn’t want I sh’u’d flare up?”

“Why, I thought it ’u’d just put you on your mettle an’ show her she c’u’dn’t come it over you.” Then she added, diplomatically changing her tone as well as the subject—“Oh, say, Emarine, I wish you’d go up in the antic an’ bring down a bunch o’ pennyrile. I’ll watch the puddin’.”

She laughed with dry humor when the girl was gone. “I got into a pickle that time. Who ever ’d ’a’ thought she’d get stirred up so? I’ll have to manage to get her cooled down before Orville comes to-night. They ain’t many matches like him, if his mother _is_ such an old scarecrow. He ain’t so well off, but he’ll humor Emarine up. He’d lay down an’ let her walk on him, I guess. There’s Mis’ Grisley b’en a-tryin’ fer months to get him to go with her Lily—_Lily_, with a complexion like sole-leather!—an’ a-askin’ him up there all the time to dinner, an’ a-flatterin’ him up to the skies. I’d like to know what they always name dark-complected babies Lily fer! Oh, did you get the pennyrile, Emarine? I was laughin’ to myself, a-wond’rin’ what Mis’ Grisley’s Lily’ll say when she hears you’re goin’ to marry Orville.”

Emarine hung a spotless dish-cloth on two nails behind the stove, but did not speak.

Mrs. Endey turned her back to the girl and smiled humorously.

“That didn’t work,” she thought. “I’ll have to try somethin’ else.”

“I’ve made up my mind to get you a second-day dress, too, Emarine. You can have it any color you want—dove-color ’d be awful nice. There’s a hat down at Mis’ Norton’s milliner’ store that ’u’d go beautiful with dove-color.”

Emarine took some flat-irons off the stove, wiped them carefully with a soft cloth and set them evenly on a shelf. Still she did not speak. Mrs. Endey’s face took on an anxious look.

“There’s some beautiful artaficial orange flowers at Mis’ Norton’s, Emarine. You can be married in ’em, if you want. They’re so reel they almost smell sweet.”

She waited a moment, but receiving no reply, she added with a kind of desperation—“An’ a veil, Emarine—a long, white one a-flowin’ down all over you to your feet—one that ’u’d just make Mis’ Grisley’s Lily’s mouth water. What do you say to that? You can have that, too, if you want.”

“Well, I don’t want!” said Emarine, fiercely. “Didn’t I say I wa’n’t goin’ to marry him? I’ll give him his walking-chalk when he comes to-night. I don’t need any help about it, either.”

She went out, closing the door as an exclamation point.

Oregon City kept early hours. The curfew ringing at nine o’clock on summer evenings gathered the tender-aged of both sexes off the street.

It was barely seven o’clock when Orville Palmer came to take Emarine out for a drive. He had a high top-buggy, rather the worse for wear, and drove a sad-eyed, sorrel horse.

She was usually ready to come tripping down the path, to save his tying the horse. To-night she did not come. He waited a while. Then he whistled and called—“Oh, Emarine!”

He pushed his hat back and leaned one elbow on his knee, flicking his whip up and down, and looking steadily at the open door. But she did not come. Finally he got out and, tying his horse, went up the path slowly. Through the door he could see Emarine sitting quietly sewing. He observed at once that she was pale.

“Sick, Emarine?” he said, going in.

“No,” she answered, “I ain’t sick.”

“Then why under the sun didn’t choo come when I hollowed?”

“I didn’t want to.” Her tone was icy.

He stared at her a full minute. Then he burst out laughing. “Oh, say, Emarine, yuh can be the contrariest girl I ever see! Yuh do love to tease a fellow so. Yuh’ll have to kiss me fer that.”

He went toward her. She pushed her chair back and gave him a look that made him pause.

“How’s your mother?” she asked.

“My mother?” A cold chill went up and down his spine. “Why—oh, she’s all right. Why?”

She took a small gold ring set with a circle of garnets from her finger and held it toward him with a steady hand.

“You can take an’ show her this ring, an’ tell her I ain’t so awful anxious to stock her up on table cloths an’ napkeens as she thinks I am. Tell her yuh’ll get some other girl to do her knucklin’-down fer her. I ain’t that kind.”

The young man’s face grew scarlet and then paled off rapidly. He looked like a man accused of a crime. “Why, Emarine,” he said, feebly.

He did not receive the ring, and she threw it on the floor at his feet. A whole month she had slept with that ring against her lips—the bond of her love and his! Now, it was only the emblem of her “knuckling-down” to another woman.

“You needn’t to stand there a-pretendin’ you don’t know what I mean.”

“Well, I don’t, Emarine.”

“Yes, you do, too. Didn’t you promise your mother that if there was any knucklin’-down to be did, I’d be the one to do it, an’ not her?”

“Why—er—Emarine—”

She laughed scornfully.

“Don’t go to tryin’ to get out of it. You know you did. Well, you can take your ring, an’ your mother, an’ all her old duds. I don’t want any o’ you.”

“Emarine,” said the young man, looking guilty and honest at the same time, “the talk I had with my mother didn’t amount to a pinch o’ snuff. It wa’n’t anything to make yuh act this way. She don’t like yuh just because I’m goin’ to marry yuh”—

“Oh, but you ain’t,” interrupted Emarine, with an aggravating laugh.

“Yes, I am, too. She kep’ naggin’ at me day an’ night fer fear yuh’d be sassy to her an’ she’d have to take a back seat.”

“I’ll tell you what’s the matter with her!” interrupted Emarine. “She’s got the big-head. She thinks ev’ry body wants to rush into her old house, an’ marry her son, an’ use her old things! She wants to make ev’rybody toe _her_ mark.”

“Emarine! She’s my mother.”

“I don’t care if she is. I w’u’dn’t tech her with a ten-foot pole.”

“She’ll be all right after we’re married, Emarine, an’ she finds out how—how nice yuh are.”

His own words appealed to his sense of the ridiculous. He smiled. Emarine divined the cause of his reluctant amusement and was instantly furious. Her face turned very white. Her eyes burned out of it like two fires.

“You think I ain’t actin’ very nice now, don’t you? I don’t care what you think, Orville Parmer, good or bad.”

The young man stood thinking seriously.

“Emarine,” he said, at last, very quietly, “I love yuh an’ yuh know it. An’ yuh love me. I’ll alwus be good to yuh an’ see that choo ain’t emposed upon, Emarine. An’ I think the world an’ all of yuh. That’s all I got to say. I can’t see what ails yuh, Emarine.... When I think o’ that day when I asked yuh to marry me.... An’ that night I give yuh the ring”—the girl’s eyelids quivered suddenly and fell. “An’ that moonlight walk we took along by the falls.... Why, it seems as if this can’t be the same girl.”

There was such a long silence that Mrs. Endey, cramping her back with one ear pressed to the keyhole of the door, decided that he had won and smiled dryly.

At last Emarine lifted her head. She looked at him steadily. “Did you, or didn’t you, tell your mother I’d have to do the knucklin’-down?”

He shuffled his feet about a little.

“Well, I guess I did, Emarine, but I didn’t mean anything. I just did it to get a little peace.”

The poor fellow had floundered upon an unfortunate excuse.

“Oh!” said the girl, contemptuously. Her lip curled. “An’ so you come an’ tell me the same thing for the same reason—just to get a little peace! A pretty time you’d have a-gettin’ any peace at all, between the two of us! You’re chickenish—an’ I hate chickenish people.”

“Emarine!”

“Oh, I wish you’d go.” There was an almost desperate weariness in her voice.

He picked up the ring with its shining garnet stars, and went.

Mrs. Endey tiptoed into the kitchen.

“My back’s about broke.” She laughed noiselessly. “I swan I’m proud o’ that girl. She’s got more o’ me in her ’n I give her credit fer. The idee o’ her a-callin’ him chickenish right out to his face! That done me good. Well, I don’t care such an awful lot if she don’t marry him. A girl with that much spunk deserves a _gov’nor_! An’ that mother o’ his’n ’s a case. I guess her an’ me ’d ’a’ fit like cats an’ dogs, anyhow.” Her lips unclosed with reluctant mirth.

* * * * *

The next morning Emarine arose and went about her work as usual. She had not slept. But there were no signs of relenting, or of regret, in her face. After the first surreptitious look at her, Mrs. Endey concluded that it was all settled unchangeably. Her aspiring mind climbed from a governor to a United States senator. There was nothing impossible to a girl who could break her own heart at night and go about the next morning setting her heels down the way Emarine was setting hers.

Mrs. Endey’s heart swelled with triumph.

Emarine washed the dishes and swept the kitchen. Then she went out to sweep the porch. Suddenly she paused. A storm of lyric passion had burst upon her ear; and running through it she heard the words—“_Sweet—oh—Sweet—my heart is breaking!_”

The girl trembled. Something stung her eyes sharply.

Then she pulled herself together stubbornly. Her face hardened. She went on sweeping with more determined care than usual.

“Well, I reckon,” she said, with a kind of fierce philosophy, “it ’u’d ’a’ been breaking a good sight worse if I’d ’a’ married him an’ that mother o’ his’n. That’s some comfort.”

But when she went in she closed the door carefully, shutting out that impassioned voice.