"And wear shabby clothes and a bad bonnet, like Mrs. Platt, and have to go to all the funerals in town! How horrid! Oh, Scott, do be some other kind of a man. A minister's wife can't dance anything but the Virginia reel, nor play anything more than muggins. Why can't you be a dentist, if you won't keep a store?"
For the once, Scott showed himself dominant, aggressive.
"Because I'd rather preach. It's what all my people have always done."
Then Catie made her blunder.
"What about your father?" she asked, and her voice was taunting.
Scott forgot his holy heritage and turned upon her swiftly.
"Shut up!" he bade her curtly, and her cheek tingled under the blow he dealt her.
It was the first time in his life that Scott had turned upon her with decision. Moreover, perchance it would have been better for him, had it not been the last.
For three days afterward, the subject was as a sealed book between them. Then Catie broke the seals, and gingerly.
"I have been thinking about your being a minister," she told him, as she dropped into step beside him, on the way to school. "Of course, you were very rude to treat me the way you did, the other day; and I hope you are sorry."