In all Houghtonsville, perhaps, there was only one heart that did not beat in sympathy, and that one, strangely enough, belonged to Mrs. Kendall’s own daughter, Margaret.
“You mean you are goin’ to marry him, and that he’ll be your husband for—for keeps?” Margaret demanded with some agitation, when her mother told her of the engagement.
Mrs. Kendall smiled. The red mounted to her cheek.
“Yes, dear,” she said.
“And he’ll live here—with us?” Margaret’s voice was growing in horror.
“Why, yes, dear,” murmured Mrs. Kendall; then, quizzically: “Why, sweetheart, what’s the matter? Don’t you like Dr. Spencer? It was only last week that you were begging me to ask some one here to live with us.”
Margaret frowned anxiously.
“But, mother, dear, that was poor folks,” she explained, her eyes troubled. “Dr. Spencer ain’t that kind, you know. You—you said he’d be a husband.”
“Yes?”
“And—and husbands—mother!” broke off the little girl, her voice sharp with anguished love and terror. “He sha’n’t come here to beat you and bang you ‘round—he just sha’n’t!”