“It's pretty cold out, ain't it?” said Charlotte, in a chiding voice which she could scarcely control.
“I've been in to see our house. Give me one more kiss. Oh, Charlotte!”
“Charlotte!” cried a deep voice, and the lovers started apart.
“I'm coming, father,” Charlotte cried out. She opened the door and went soberly into the kitchen, with Barnabas at her heels. Her father, mother, and Aunt Sylvia Crane sat there in the red gleam of the firelight and gathering twilight. Sylvia sat a little behind the others, and her face in her white cap had the shadowy delicacy of one of the flowering apple sprays outside.
“How d'ye do?” said Barnabas in a brave tone which was slightly aggressive. Charlotte's mother and aunt responded rather nervously.
“How's your mother, Barnabas?” inquired Mrs. Barnard.
“She's pretty well, thank you.”
Charlotte pulled forward a chair for her lover; he had just seated himself, when Cephas Barnard spoke in a voice as sudden and gruff as a dog's bark. Barnabas started, and his chair grated on the sanded floor.
“Light the candle, Charlotte,” said Cephas, and Charlotte obeyed. She lighted the candle on the high shelf, then she sat down next Barnabas. Cephas glanced around at them. He was a small man, with a thin face in a pale film of white locks and beard, but his black eyes gleamed out of it with sharp fixedness. Barnabas looked back at him unflinchingly, and there was a curious likeness between the two pairs of black eyes. Indeed, there had been years ago a somewhat close relationship between the Thayers and the Barnards, and it was not strange if one common note was repeated generations hence.
Cephas had been afraid lest Barnabas should, all unperceived in the dusk, hold his daughter's hand, or venture upon other loverlike familiarity. That was the reason why he had ordered the candle lighted when it was scarcely dark enough to warrant it.