“Oh!” cried Araminta, her eyes shining.  “Truly?”

“Truly,” nodded Ralph.

“Would—­would—­” hesitated Araminta—­“would it be any more than four dollars and a half if you brought me the little cat?  Because if it is, I can’t——­”

“It wouldn’t,” interrupted Ralph.  “On any bill over a dollar and a quarter, I always throw in a kitten.  Didn’t you know that?”

“No,” answered Araminta, with a happy little laugh.  How kind he was, eyen though he was a man!  Perhaps, if he knew how wicked her mother had been, he would not be so kind to her.  The stern Puritan conscience rose up and demanded explanation.

“I—­I—­must tell you,” she said, “before you bring me the little cat.  My mother—­she—­” here Araminta turned her crimson face away.  She swallowed a lump in her throat, then said, bravely:  “My mother was married!”

Doctor Ralph Dexter laughed—­a deep, hearty, boyish laugh that rang cheerfully through the empty house.  “I’ll tell you something,” he said.  He leaned over and whispered in her ear; “So was mine!”

Araminta’s tell-tale face betrayed her relief.  He knew the worst now—­and he was similarly branded.  His mother, too, had been an outcast, beyond Aunt Hitty’s pale.  There was comfort in the thought, though Araminta had been taught not to rejoice at another’s misfortune.

Ralph strolled off down the hill, his hands in his pockets, for the moment totally forgetting the promised kitten.  “The little saint,” he mused, “she’s been kept in a cage all her life.  She doesn’t know anything except what the dragon has taught her.  She looks at life with the dragon’s sidewise squint.  I’ll open the door for her,” he continued, mentally, “for I think she’s worth saving.  Hope to Moses and the prophets I don’t forget that cat.”

No suspicion that he could forget penetrated Araminta’s consciousness.  It had been pleasant to have Doctor Ralph sit there and wash her face, talking to her meanwhile, even though he was a man, and men were poison.  Like a strong, sure bond between them, Araminta felt their common disgrace.

“His mother was married,” she thought, drowsily, “and so was mine.  Neither of them knew any better.  Oh, Lord,” prayed Araminta, with renewed vigour, “keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy sake.  Amen.”

XI

The Loose Link

Seated primly on a chair in Miss Evelina’s kitchen, Miss Mehitable gave a full account of her sentiments toward Doctor Ralph Dexter.  She began with his birth and remarked that he was a puny infant, and, for a time, it was feared that he was “light headed.”

“He got his senses after a while, though,” she continued, grudgingly, “that is, such as they are.”

She proceeded through his school-days, repeated unflattering opinions which his teachers had expressed to her, gave an elaborate description of the conflict that ensued when she caught him stealing green apples from her incipient, though highly promising, orchard, alluded darkly to his tendency to fight with his schoolmates, suggested that certain thefts of chickens ten years and more ago could, if the truth were known, safely be attributed to Ralph Dexter, and speculated upon the trials and tribulations a scapegrace son might cause an upright and respected father.