“Of course not, Mrs. Strang,” retorted the deacon, severely. “On’y you asked if I was sure, and I allowed I’d show you Deacon Hailey was genuine. It’s sorter sealin’ the bargen, hey? I couldn’t let you depart in onsartinty.”
“Well, behave yourself in future,” she said, only half mollified, as she readjusted her hair, “or I’ll throw up the position. I guess I’ll be off now,” and she took bonnet and mantle from a peg.
“Not in anger, Mrs. Strang, I hope. ‘Let all bitterness be put away from you,’ hey? Thet thar han’sum face o’ yourn warn’t meant for thunder-clouds.”
He hastened to help her on with her things, and in the process effected a reconciliation by speaking of new ones—”store clothes”—that would set off her beauty better. Mrs. Strang walked airily through the slushy forest road as on a primrose path. She was excited and radiant—her troubles were rolled away, and her own and her children’s future assured, and Heaven itself had nodded assent. Her lonely heart was to know a lover’s tenderness again; it was swelling now with gratitude that might well blossom into affection. How gay her home should be with festive companies, to be balanced by mammoth revivalist meetings! She would be the centre of hospitality and piety for the country-side.
But as she neared the house—which seemed to have run half-way to meet her—the primroses changed back to slush, and her face to its habitual gloom.
Matt and Harriet were alone in the kitchen. The girl was crocheting, the boy daubing flowers on a board, which he slid under the table as he heard his mother stamping off the wet snow in the passage. Mrs. Strang detected the board, but she contented herself by ordering him to go to bed. Then she warmed her frozen hands at the stove and relapsed into silence. Twenty times she opened her lips to address Harriet, but the words held back. She grew angry with her daughter at last.
“You’re plaguy onsociable to-night, Harriet,” she said, sharply.
“Me, mother?”
“Yes, you. You might tell a body the news.”
“There’s no news to Cobequid. Ole Jupe’s come back from fiddlin’ at a colored ball way down Hants County. He says two darkies hed a fight over the belle.”