“They actually made good kindlin’ wood,” she told her sister Sylvia.  “Poor Cephas, he didn’t have no more idea than a baby about makin’ pies.”  All Sarah’s ire had died away; to-night she set a large plump apple-pie slyly on the table—­an apple-pie with ample allowance of lard in the crust thereof; and she felt not the slightest exultation, only honest pleasure, when she saw, without seeming to, Cephas cut off a goodly wedge, after disposing of his dock greens.

“Poor father, I’m real glad he’s tastin’ of the pie,” she whispered to Charlotte in the pantry; “greens ain’t very fillin’.”

Charlotte smiled, absently.  Presently she slipped into the best room and lighted the candles.  “You expectin’ of anybody to-night?” her mother asked, when she came out.

“I didn’t know but somebody might come,” Charlotte replied, evasively.  She blushed a little before her mother’s significantly smiling face, but there was none of the shamed delight which should have accompanied the blush.  She looked very sober—­almost stern.

“Hadn’t you better put on your other dress again, then?” asked her mother.”

“No, I guess this ’ll do.”

Cephas ate his pie in silence—­he had helped himself to another piece—­but he heard every word.  After he had finished, he fumbled in his pocket for his old leather purse, and counted over a little store of money on his knee.

Charlotte was setting away the dishes in the pantry when her father came up behind her and crammed something into her hand.  She started.  “What is it?” said she.

“Look and see,” said Cephas.

Charlotte opened her hand, and saw a great silver dollar.  “I thought mebbe you’d like to buy somethin’ with it,” said Cephas.  He cleared his throat, and went out through the kitchen into the shed.  Charlotte was too amazed to thank him; her mother came into the pantry.  “What did he give you?” she whispered.

Charlotte held up the money.  “Poor father,” said Sarah Barnard, “he’s doin’ of it to make up.  He was dreadful sorry about that other, an’ he’s tickled ’most to death now he thinks you’ve got somebody else, and are contented.  Poor father, he ain’t got much money, either.”

“I don’t want it,” Charlotte said, her steady mouth quivering downward at the corners.

“You keep it.  He’d feel all upset if you didn’t.  You’ll find it come handy.  I know you’ve got a good many things now, but you had ought to have a new cape come fall; you can’t come out bride in a muslin one when snow flies.”  Sarah cast a half-timid, half-shrewd glance at Charlotte, who put the dollar in her pocket.

“A green satin cape, lined and wadded, would be handsome,” pursued her mother.

“I sha’n’t ever come out bride,” said Charlotte.

“How you talk.  There, he’s comin’ now!”

And, indeed, at that the clang of the knocker sounded through the house.  Charlotte took off her apron and started to answer it, but her mother caught her and pinned up a stray lock of hair.  “I ’most wish you had put on your other dress again,” she whispered.