he didn’t know but we were eatin’ the wrong kind of food.  Lately he’s had an idea that mebbe we’d ought to eat more meat; he’s thought it was more strengthenin’, an’ we’d ought to eat things as near like what we wanted to strengthen as could be.  I’ve made a good deal of bone soup.  But now he says he thinks mebbe he’s been mistaken, an’ animal food kind of quickens the animal nature in us, an’ that we’d better eat green things an’ garden sass.”

“I guess garden sass will strengthen the other kind of sass that Cephas Barnard has got in him full as much as bone soup has,” interrupted Hannah Berry, with a sarcastic sniff.

“I dunno but he’s right,” said Mrs. Barnard.  “Cephas thinks a good deal an’ looks into things.  I kind of wish he’d waited till the garden had got started, though, for there ain’t much we can eat now but potatoes an’ turnips an’ dandelion greens.”

“If you want to live on potatoes an’ turnips an’ dandelion greens, you can,” cried Hannah Berry; “What I want to know is if you’re goin’ to settle down an’ say nothin’, an’ have Charlotte lose the best chance she’ll ever have in her life, if she lives to be a hundred—­”

Charlotte spoke up suddenly; her blue eyes gleamed with steely light.  She held her head high as she faced her aunt.

“I don’t want any more talk about it, Aunt Hannah,” said she.

“Hey?”

“I don’t want any more talk about it.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have more talk about it; girls don’t get jilted without there is talk generally.  I guess you’ll have to make up your mind to it, for all you put on such airs with your own aunt, who left her washin’ an’ come over here to take your part.  I guess when you stand out in the road half an hour an’ call a young man to come back, an’ he don’t come, that folks are goin’ to talk some.  Who’s that comin’ now?”

“It’s Cephas,” whispered Mrs. Barnard, with a scared glance at Charlotte.

Cephas Barnard entered abruptly, and stood for a second looking at the company, while they looked back at him.  His eyes were stolidly defiant, but he stood well back, and almost shrank against the door.  There seemed to be impulses in Hannah’s and Sylvia’s faces confronting his.

He turned to his wife.  “When you comin’ home?” said he.

“Oh, Cephas!  I jest ran over here a minute.  I—­wanted to see—­if—­Sylvy had any emptins.  Do you want me an’ Charlotte to come now?”

Cephas turned on his heel.  “I think it’s about time for you both to be home,” he grunted.

Sarah Barnard arose and looked with piteous appeal at Charlotte.

Charlotte hesitated a second, then she arose without a word, and followed her mother, who followed Cephas.  They went in a procession of three, with Cephas marching ahead like a general, across the yard, and Sylvia and Hannah stood at a window watching them.

“Well,” said Hannah Berry, “all I’ve got to say is I’m thankful I ‘ain’t got a man like that, an’ you ought to be mighty thankful you ’ain’t got any man at all, Sylvy Crane.”