“I should think, Araminta Lee, that you ’d be the last one on earth to ask what’s wrong!” The flood gates were open now.  “Wasn’t it only yesterday that you broke away from all restraint and refused to make any more quilts?  Didn’t you put on your best dress in the afternoon when ’t want Sunday and I hadn’t told you that you could?  Didn’t you pick a rose and stick it into your hair, and have I ever allowed you to pick a flower on the place, to say nothing of doing anything so foolish as to put it in your hair?  Flowers and hair don’t go together.”

“There’s hair in the parlour,” objected Araminta, frivolously, “made up into a wreath of flowers, so I thought as long as you had them made out of dead people’s hair, I’d put some roses in mine, now, while I’m alive.”

Miss Mehitable compressed her lips sternly and went on.

“Didn’t you take a rug out of the parlour last night and spread it on the porch, and have I ever had rugs outdoor except when they was being beat?  And didn’t you sit down on the front porch, where I’ve never allowed you to sit, it not being modest for a young female to sit outside of her house?”

“Yes,” admitted Araminta, cheerfully, “I did all those things, and I put my hair up loosely instead of tightly, as you’ve always taught me.  You forgot that.”

“No, I didn’t,” denied Miss Mehitable, vigorously; “I was coming to that.  Didn’t you go up to Miss Evelina’s without asking me if you could, and didn’t you go bareheaded, as I’ve never allowed you to do?”

“Yes,” laughed Araminta, “I did.”

“After I went away,” pursued Miss Mehitable, swiftly approaching her climax, “didn’t you go up to Doctor Dexter’s like a shameless hussy?”

“If it makes a shameless hussy of me to go to Doctor Dexter’s, that’s what I am.”

“You went there to see Doctor Ralph Dexter, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did,” sang Araminta, “and oh, Aunt Hitty, he was there!  He was there!”

“Ain’t I told you,” demanded Miss Mehitable, “how one woman went up there when she had no business to go and got burnt so awful that she has to wear a veil all the rest of her life?”

“Yes, you told me, Aunt Hitty, but, you see, I didn’t get burned.”

“Araminta Lee, you’re going right straight to hell, just as fast as you can get there.  Perdition is yawning at your feet.  Didn’t that blackmailing play-doctor come home with you?”

“Ralph,” Said Araminta—­and the way she spoke his name made it a caress—­“Ralph came home with me.”

“I saw you comin’ home,” continued Miss Mehitable, with her sharp eyes keenly fixed upon the culprit.  “I saw his arm around your waist and you leanin’ your head on his shoulder.”

“Yes,” laughed Araminta, “I haven’t forgotten.  I can feel his arms around me now.”

“And at the gate—­you needn’t deny it, for I saw it all—­he KISSED you!”

“That’s right, Aunt Hitty.  At his house, he kissed me, too, lots and lots of times.  And,” she added, her eyes meeting her accuser’s clearly, “I kissed him.”