“William wanted to go bad enough, but he was too upset by what father said. You mustn't mind father,” Rose said, peering around into Rebecca's bonnet. “Why, Rebecca, what is the matter?”
“I didn't go into that store a step to see William Berry. You know I didn't,” Rebecca cried out, with sudden passion. Her voice was hoarse with tears; her face was all hot and quivering with shame and anger.
“Why, of course you didn't,” Rose returned, in a bewildered way. “Who said you did, Rebecca?”
“You know I didn't. I hated to go to the store this morning. I told mother I didn't want to, but she didn't have a mite of sugar in the house, and there wasn't anybody else to send. Ephraim ain't very well, and Doctor Whiting says he ought not to walk very far. I had to come, but I didn't come to see William Berry, and nobody has any call to think I did.”
“I don't know who said you did. I don't know what you mean, Rebecca.”
“You acted as if you thought so. I don't want William Berry seeing me home in broad daylight, when I've been to the store to trade, and you needn't think that's what I came for, and he needn't.”
“Good land, Rebecca Thayer, he didn't, and I was just in fun. He'd have come with you, but he was so mad at what father said that he backed out. William's just about as easy upset as you are. I didn't mean any harm. Say, Rebecca, come into the house a little while, can't you? I don't believe your mother is in any great hurry for the sugar.” Rose took hold of Rebecca's arm, but Rebecca jerked herself away with a sob, and went down the road almost on a run.
“Well, I hope you're touchy enough, Rebecca Thayer,” Rose called out, as she stood looking after her. “Folks will begin to think you did come to see William if you make such a fuss when nobody accuses you of it, if you don't look out.”
Rebecca hastened trembling down the road. She made no reply, but she knew that Rose was quite right, and that she had attacked her with futile reproaches in order to save herself from shame in her own eyes. Rebecca knew quite well that in spite of her hesitation and remonstrances, in spite of her maiden shrinking on the threshold of the store, she had come to see William Berry. She had been glad, although she had turned a hypocritical face towards her own consciousness, that Ephraim was not well enough and she was obliged to go. Her heart had leaped with joy when Rose had proposed William's walking home with her, but when he refused she was crushed with shame. “He thought I came to see him,” she kept saying to herself as she hurried along, and there was no falsehood that she would not have sworn to to shield her modesty from such a thought on his part.
When she got home and entered the kitchen, she kept her face turned away from her mother. “Here's the sugar,” she said, and she took it out of the basket and placed it on the table.