The unexpectedness and irrelevancy of this for a moment startled Seth.  But that chaste and God-fearing man had no secrets.  “Only by hearsay, Jane,” he returned quietly; “but if ye say the word I’ll stop his comin’ now.”

“It’s too late,” said Mrs. Rivers decidedly.

“I reckon not,” returned her husband, “and that’s why I came straight here.  I’ve only got to meet them at the depot and say this thing can’t be done—­and that’s the end of it.  They’ll go off quiet to the hotel.”

“I don’t like to disappoint the doctor, Seth,” said Mrs. Rivers.  “We might,” she added, with a troubled look of inquiry at her husband, “we might take that Mr. Hamlin on trial.  Like as not he won’t stay, anyway, when he sees what we’re like, Seth.  What do you think?  It would be only our Christian duty, too.”

“I was thinkin’ o’ that as a professin’ Christian, Jane,” said her husband.  “But supposin’ that other Christians don’t look at it in that light.  Thar’s Deacon Stubbs and his wife and the parson.  Ye remember what he said about ’no covenant with sin’?”

“The Stubbses have no right to dictate who I’ll have in my house,” said Mrs. Rivers quickly, with a faint flush in her rather sallow cheeks.

“It’s your say and nobody else’s,” assented her husband with grim submissiveness.  “You do what you like.”

Mrs. Rivers mused.  “There’s only myself and Melinda here,” she said with sublime naivete; “and the children ain’t old enough to be corrupted.  I am satisfied if you are, Seth,” and she again looked at him inquiringly.

“Go ahead, then, and get ready for ’em,” said Seth, hurrying away with unaffected relief.  “If you have everything fixed by nine o’clock, that’ll do.”

Mrs. Rivers had everything “fixed” by that hour, including herself presumably, for she had put on a gray dress which she usually wore when shopping in the county town, adding a prim collar and cuffs.  A pearl-encircled brooch, the wedding gift of Seth, and a solitaire ring next to her wedding ring, with a locket containing her children’s hair, accented her position as a proper wife and mother.  At a quarter to nine she had finished tidying the parlor, opening the harmonium so that the light might play upon its polished keyboard, and bringing from the forgotten seclusion of her closet two beautifully bound volumes of Tupper’s “Poems” and Pollok’s “Course of Time,” to impart a literary grace to the centre table.  She then drew a chair to the table and sat down before it with a religious magazine in her lap.  The wind roared over the deep-throated chimney, the clock ticked monotonously, and then there came the sound of wheels and voices.