“What do you mean by that?” she demanded sharply.

“I meant the plate.  Little more and you’d have sent it to glory.”

“Never you mind the plate.  I can look out for my own crockery.  ’Twas cracked anyhow.  And I guess you’re cracked, too,” she added.  “Talkin’ about my—­my marryin’ Caleb Hammond.  What put that in your head?”

“I don’t know.  I just—­”

“Well, don’t be silly.  When I marry Caleb Hammond,” she added with emphasis, “’twill be after this.”

“So I cal’lated.  I didn’t think you’d married him afore this.  There now, you missed a chance, Hannah.  You and he ought to have got married that time when you went away together.”

Miss Parker turned pale.  “When we went—­away—­together!” she faltered.  “What are you talkin’ about?”

“When you went over to the Cattle Show that time.”

“Is that what you meant?”

“Sartin.  What are you glarin’ at me that way for?  You ain’t been away together any other time, have you?  No, Hannah, that was your chance.  You and Caleb might have been married in the balloon, like the couples we read about in the papers.  Ho! ho!  Think of the advertisin’ you’d have had!  ‘A high church weddin’.’  ‘Bride and groom up in the air.’  Can’t you see those headlines?”

Hannah appeared more relieved than annoyed.

“Humph!” she sniffed.  “Well, I should say you was up in the air, Obed Bangs.  What’s the matter with you this mornin’?  Has the rain soaked into your head?  It seems to be softenin’ up pretty fast.  If you’re so set on somebody gettin’ married why don’t you get married yourself?  You’ve been what the minister calls ‘unattackted’ all your life.”

The minister had said “unattached,” but Captain Obed did not offer to correct the quotation.  He joked no more and, during breakfast, was silent and absent-minded.

After breakfast he went out for a walk.  The storm had gullied the hills and flooded the hollows.  There were pools of water everywhere, shining cold and steely in the winter sunshine.  The captain remembered the low ground in which the barn and outbuildings upon the “Cap’n Abner place” stood, and judged that he and Kenelm might have to do some rescue work among the poultry later on.  He went back to the house to suggest that work to Mr. Parker himself.

Kenelm and his sister were evidently in the midst of a dispute.  The former was seated at the breakfast table and Hannah was standing by the kitchen door looking at him.

“Goin’ off to work Christmas Day!” she said, as the captain entered.  “I should think you might stay home with me that day, if no other.  ’Tain’t the work you’re so anxious to get to.  It’s that precious inmate of yours.”

Kenelm’s answer was as surprising as it was emphatic.

“Darn the inmate!” he shouted.  “I wish to thunder I’d never seen her!”

Captain Obed whistled.  Miss Parker staggered, but she recovered promptly.