“August.”

The symphony ceased in a moment.  The scrubbing-brush dropped in the pail of soapsuds.  But the vocal storm burst forth with a violence that startled even Julia.  “August said that, did he?  And you listened, did you?  You listened to that?  You listened to that? You listened to that?  Hey?  He slandered your mother.  You listened to him slander your mother!” By this time Mrs. Anderson was at white heat.  Julia was speechless. “I saw you yesterday flirting with that Dutchman, and listening to his abuse of your mother!  And now you insult me!  Well, to-morrow will be the last day that that Dutchman will hold a plow on this place.  And you’d better look out for yourself, miss!  You—­”

Here followed a volley of epithets which Julia received standing.  But when her mother’s voice grew to a scream, Julia took the word.

“Mother, hush!”

It was the first word of resistance she had ever uttered.  The agony within must have been terrible to have wrung it from her.  The mother was stunned with anger and astonishment.  She could not recover herself enough to speak until Jule had fled half-way up the stairs.  Then her mother covered her defeat by screaming after her, “Go to your own room, you impudent hussy!  You know I am liable to die of heart-disease any minute, and you want to kill me!”

CHAPTER III.

A FAREWELL.

Mrs. Anderson felt that she had made a mistake.  She had not meant to tell Julia that August was to leave.  But now that this stormy scene had taken place, she thought she could make a good use of it.  She knew that her husband co-operated with her in her opposition to “the Dutchman,” only because he was afraid of his wife.  In his heart, Samuel Anderson could not refuse anything to his daughter.  Denied any of the happiness which most men find in loving their wives, he found consolation in the love of his daughter.  Secretly, as though his paternal affection were a crime, he caressed Julia, and his wife was not long in discovering that the father cared more for a loving daughter than for a shrewish wife.  She watched him jealously, and had come to regard her daughter as one who had supplanted her in her husband’s affections, and her husband as robbing her of the love of her daughter.  In truth, Mrs. Samuel Anderson had come to stand so perpetually on guard against imaginary encroachments on her rights, that she saw enemies everywhere.  She hated Wehle because he was a Dutchman; she would have hated him on a dozen other scores if he had been an American.  It was offense enough that Julia loved him.