“Now don’t, you poor child,” said her mother, her eyes growing suddenly red.  “Didn’t he even turn round when you called him back last night?”

Charlotte shook her bowed head dumbly.

“Don’t you s’pose he’ll ever come again?”

Charlotte shook her head.

“Mebbe he will.  I know he’s terrible set.”

“Who’s set?” demanded Sylvia, coming in with her empty plate.

“Oh, I was jest sayin’ that I thought Barney was kinder set,” replied her sister, mildly.

“He ain’t no more set than Cephas,” returned Sylvia.

“Cephas ain’t set.  It’s jest his way.”

Sylvia sniffed.  She looked scornfully at Charlotte, who had raised her head when she came in, but whose eyes were red.  “Folks had better been created without ways, then,” she retorted.  “They’d better have been created slaves; they’d been enough sight happier an’ better off, an’ so would other folks that they have to do with, than to have so many ways, an’ not sense enough to manage ’em.  I don’t believe in free-will, for my part.”

“Sylvy Crane, you ain’t goin’ to deny one of the doctrines of the Church at your time of life?” demanded a new voice.  Sylvia’s other sister, Hannah Berry, stood in the doorway.

Sylvia ordinarily was meek before her, but now she faced her.  “Yes, I be,” said she; “I don’t approve of free-will, and I ain’t afraid to say it.”

Sylvia had always been considered very unlike Mrs. Hannah Berry in face and character.  Now, as she stood before her, a curious similarity appeared; even her voice sounded like her sister’s.

“What on earth ails you, Sylvy?” asked Mrs. Berry, ignoring suddenly the matter in hand.

“Nothin’ ails me that I know of.  I don’t think much of free-will, an’ I ain’t goin’ to say I do when I don’t.”

“Then all I’ve got to say is you’d ought to be ashamed of yourself.  Why, I should think you was crazy, Sylvy Crane, settin’ up yourself agin’ the doctrines of the Word.  I’d like to know what you know about them.”

“I know enough to see how they work,” returned Sylvia, undauntedly, “an’ I ain’t goin’ to pretend I’m blind when I can see.”

Sylvia’s serene arc of white forehead was shortened by a distressed frown, her mild mouth dropped sourly at the corners, and the lips were compressed.  Her white cap was awry, and one of yesterday’s curls hung lankly over her left cheek.

“You look an’ act like a crazy creature,” said Hannah Berry, eying her with indignant amazement.  She walked across the room to another rocking-chair, moving with unexpected heaviness.  She was in reality as stout as her sister Sarah Barnard, but she had a long, thin, and rasped face, which misled people.

“Now,” said she, looking around conclusively, “I ain’t come over here to argue about free-will.  I want to know what all this is about?”

“All what?” returned Mrs. Barnard, feebly.  She was distinctly afraid of her imperious sister, yet she was conscious of a quiver of resentment.