“Araminta Lee,” said Miss Mehitable, warningly, “look careful where you’re steppin’.  Hell is yawning in front of you this very minute!”

Araminta smiled sweetly.  Since the day the minister had gone to see her, she had had no fear of hell.  “I don’t see it, Aunt Hitty,” she said, “but if everybody who hasn’t pieced more than eight quilts by hand is in there, it must be pretty crowded.”

“Araminta Lee,” cried Miss Mehitable, “you’re your mother all over again.  She got just as high-steppin’ as you before her downfall, and see where she ended at.  She was married,” concluded the accuser, scornfully, “yes, actually married!”

“Aunt Hitty,” said Araminta, her sweet mouth quivering ever so little, “your mother was married, too, wasn’t she?” With this parting shaft, the girl went out of the room, her head held high.

Miss Mehitable stared after her, uncomprehending.  Slowly it dawned upon her that some one had been telling tales and undoing her careful work.  “Minty!  Minty!” she cried, “how can you talk to me so!”

But ‘Minty’ was outdoors and on her way to Miss Evelina’s, bareheaded, this being strictly forbidden, so she did not hear.  She was hoping against hope that some day, at Miss Evelina’s, she might meet Doctor Ralph again and tell him she was sorry she had broken his heart.

Since the day he went away from her, Araminta had not had even a glimpse of him.  She had gone to his father’s funeral, as everyone else in the village did, and had wondered that he was not in the front seat, where, in her brief experience of funerals, mourners usually sat.

She admitted, to herself, that she had gone to the funeral solely for the sake of seeing Doctor Ralph.  Araminta was wholly destitute of curiosity regarding the dead, and she had not joined the interested procession which wound itself around Anthony Dexter’s coffin before passing out, regretfully, at the front door.  Neither had Miss Mehitable.  At the time, Araminta had thought it strange, for at all previous occasions of the kind, within her remembrance.  Aunt Hitty had been well up among the mourners and had usually gone around the casket twice.

At Miss Evelina’s, she knocked in vain.  There was white chiffon upon the line, but all the doors were locked.  Doctor Ralph was not there, either, and even the kitten was not in sight, so, regretfully, Araminta went home again.

Throughout the day, Miss Mehitable did not speak to her erring niece, but Araminta felt it to be a relief, rather than a punishment.  In the afternoon, the emancipated young woman put on her best gown—­a white, cross-barred muslin which she had made herself.  It was not Sunday, and Araminta was forbidden to wear the glorified raiment save on occasions of high state.