“I couldn’t bear it so, anyhow!  I couldn’t!” Rose cried out, with sudden passion.  “I wouldn’t bear it.  I’d go down on my knees to him to come back!” Rose flung back her head and looked at Charlotte with a curious defiance; her face grew suddenly intense, and seemed to open out into bloom and color like a flower.  The pupils of her blue eyes dilated until they looked black; her thin lips looked full and red; her cheeks were flaming; her slender chest heaved.  “I would,” said she; “I don’t care, I would.”

Charlotte looked at her, and a quivering flush like a reflection was left on her fair, steady face.

“I would,” said Rose again.

“It wouldn’t do any good.”

“It would if he cared anything about you.”

“It would if he could give up to the care.  Barney Thayer has got a terrible will that won’t always let him do what he wants to himself.”

“I don’t believe he’s enough of a fool to put his own eyes out.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I’d try, anyway.”

“It wouldn’t do any good.”

“I don’t believe you care anything about him, Charlotte Barnard!” Rose cried out.  “If you did, you couldn’t give him up so easy for such a silly thing.  You sit there just as calm.  I don’t believe but what you’ll have another fellow on the string in a month.  I know one that’s dying to get you.”

“Maybe I shall,” replied Charlotte.

“Won’t you, now?” Rose tried to speak archly, but her eyes were fiercely eager.

“I can’t tell till I get home from the grave,” said Charlotte.  “You might wait till I did, Rose.”  She got up and went to dusting her bureau and the little gilt-framed mirror behind it.  Her lips were shut tightly, and she never looked at her cousin.

“Now don’t get mad, Charlotte,” Rose said.  “Maybe I ought not to have spoken so, but it did seem to me you couldn’t care as much—­ It does seem to me I couldn’t settle down and be so calm if I was in your place, and all ready to be married to anybody.  I should want to do something.”

“I should, if there was anything to do,” said Charlotte.  She stopped dusting and leaned against the wall, reflecting.  “I wish it was a real mountain to move,” said she; “I’d do it.”

“I’d go right down in the field where he is ploughing, and I’d make him say he’d come to see me to-night.”

“I called him back last night—­you heard me,” said Charlotte, with slow bitterness.  Her square delicate chin dipped into the muslin folds of her neckerchief; she looked steadily at the floor and bent her brow.

“I’d call him again.”

“You would, would you?” cried Charlotte, straightening herself.  “You would stand out in the road and keep on calling a man who wouldn’t even turn his head?  You’d keep on calling, and let all the town hear?”

“Yes, I would.  I would!  I wouldn’t be ashamed of anything if I was going to marry him.  I’d go on my knees before him in the face and eyes of the whole town.”