It was natural that David should want to leave Beulah and make his way in the world, and his sister did not oppose it.  Dick’s circumstances were different.  He had inherited a small house and farm from his mother, had enjoyed a college education, and had been offered a share in a good business in a city twelve miles away.  He left Beulah because he hated it.  He left because he could not endure his father’s gentle remonstrances or the bewilderment in his stepmother’s eyes.  She was a newcomer in the household and her glance seemed to say:  “Why on earth do you behave so badly to your father when you’re such a delightful chap?” He left because Deacon Todd had prayed for him publicly at a Christian Endeavor meeting; because Mrs. Popham had circulated a wholly baseless scandal about him; and finally because in his young misery the only being who could have comforted him by joining her hapless fortunes to his had refused to do so.  He didn’t know why.  He had always counted on Letty when the time should come to speak the word.  He had shown his heart in everything but words; what more did a girl want?  Of course, if any one preferred a purely fantastic duty to a man’s love, and allowed a scapegrace brother to foist two red-faced, squalling babies on her, there was nothing to be said.  So, in this frame of mind he had had one flaming, passionate, wrong-headed scene with his father, and strode out of Beulah with dramatic gestures of shaking its dust off his feet.  His father, roused for once from his lifelong patience, had been rather terrible in that last scene; so terrible that he had never forgiven himself, or really believed himself fully forgiven by God, though his son had alienated half the village and nearly rent the parish in twain by his conduct.

As for Letty, she held her peace.  She could only hope that the minister and his wife suspected nothing, and she was sure of Beulah’s point of view.  That a girl would never give up a suitor, if she had any hope of tying him to her for life, was a popular form of belief in the community; and strangely enough it was chiefly the women, not the men, who made it current.  Now and then a soft-hearted and chivalrous male would observe indulgently of some village beauty, “I shouldn’t wonder a mite if she could ‘a’ had Bill for the askin’”; but this opinion would be met by such a chorus of feminine incredulity that its author generally withdrew it as unsound and untenable.

It was then, when Dick had gone away, that the days had grown drab and long, but the twins kept Letty’s inexperienced hands busy, though in the first year she had the help of old Miss Clarissa Perry, a childless expert in the bringing-up of babies.

The friendship of Reba Larrabee, so bright and cheery and comprehending, was a never-ending solace.  There was nothing of the martyr about Letty.  She was not wholly resigned to her lot, and to tell the truth she did not intend to be, for a good many years yet.