"You shan't speak against Father!" cried Ellen. "I don't see why we can't live at peace and love one another. It's wicked for Matthew to make Father feel badly. I would rather"—she knew that she was saying a monstrous thing, but it was true—"I would rather lose my soul than hurt any one like that. I wouldn't believe a religion that made me act like that. I wouldn't believe"—she was now too excited to know exactly what she was saying—"I wouldn't obey a God that wanted me to act like that. I—"
Her sentence unfinished, she got outside and shut the door between her and them. It was beginning to snow and it might be more than an hour before her father came, but she could not stay in the little house.
The snow thickened and twilight fell and she waited, pacing up and down, and feeling the chill of the raw night air through her whole body. She did not go beyond the turn of the road, nor would she start home, for then her father would go into the cottage to inquire for her and he might be met by reproaches and impertinence. Lights shone out from comfortable warm rooms in Ephrata; men returning from their work in the village to homes in the country and women laden with packages looked at her curiously; but she did not forsake her post, though she might have walked home easily.
When at last her father arrived she was shivering. He held his restless horse with one hand and put out the other to help her. He was late—the fastening of a box to the back of the buggy had taken time.
"What in the world are you doing out here?" he asked.
"I'm waiting for you."
"But why here?"
"They wouldn't take my presents," wailed Ellen. "They didn't want them; they think I'm wicked. They won't come to dinner. They were all there. Matthew has a—a—beard, Father! I—" But she could say no more.
When she had changed her clothes, she and Mrs. Sassaman taking counsel together over the proper method of pressing the beautiful coat, and had had supper, Levis asked for an account of the afternoon.
"We'll think no more of it," said he when she had finished. "Matthew has chosen for himself. We've done everything we can and it's useless to cry or worry."