An hour later she remembered that she had promised to let Nicholas join her in the pasture, and she left the house with the grievance still at her heart.
When she saw him it broke out abruptly.
"I am surprised that you keep up with such people," she said.
He looked at her blankly.
"If you mean Bessie Pollard," he rejoined, "she was in trouble and came to me for advice. I couldn't help her, but I could at least be civil. She was kind to me when I was in her father's store."
"I do not care to be reminded that you were ever in such a position."
He flinched, but answered quietly:
"I am afraid you will have to face it," he said. "If you become my wife, you will, unfortunately, have to face a good deal that you might escape by marrying in your own class—I am not in your class, you know," he slowly added.
She was conscious of a cloudy irritation which was alien to her usually beaming moods. The figure of Amos Burr loomed large before her, and she hated herself for the discovery that she was tracing his sinister likeness in his son. No, it was only the hair—that was all, but she loathed the obvious colour.
Her lip trembled and she set her teeth into it.