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“‘Melia!” cried he sharply. “I’ll be buttered if he ain’t been and traded off both your cows. My Lord! be you goin’ to stan’ there an’ let them two cows go?”

Amelia gave one swift glance from the window, following the path marked out by that insinuating index. It was true. Elbridge was driving her two cows out of the yard, and her husband stood by, watching him. She walked quietly into the entry, and Josiah laid his old hands together in the rapturous certainty that she was going to open the door, and send her anger forth. But Amelia only took down his butternut coat from the nail, and returned with it, holding it ready for him to insert his arms.

“Here’s your coat,” said she, with that strange, deceptive calmness. “Stan’ up, an’ I’ll help you put it on.”

Josiah looked at her with helplessly open mouth, and eyes so vacuous that Amelia felt, even at that moment, the grim humor of his plight.

“I was in hopes he’d harness up”–he began, but she ruthlessly cut him short.

“Stan’ up! Here, put t’other arm in fust. This han’kercher yours? Goes round your neck? There ‘t is. Here’s your hat. Got any mittens? There they be, in your pocket. This way. This is the door you come in, an’ this is the door you’ll go out of.” She preceded him, her head thrown up, her shoulders back. Amelia had no idea of dramatic values, but she was playing an effective part. She reached the door and flung it open, but Josiah, a poor figure in its huddled capes, still stood abjectly in the middle of the kitchen. “Come!” she called peremptorily. “Come, Josiah Pease! Out you go.” And Josiah went, though, contrary to his usual habit, he did not talk. He quavered uncertainly down the steps, and Amelia called a halt. “Josiah Pease!”

He turned, and looked up at her. His mouth had dropped, and he was nothing but a very helpless old child. Vicious as he was, Amelia realized the mental poverty of her adversary, and despised herself for despising him. “Josiah Pease!” she repeated. “This is the end. Don’t you darken my doors ag’in. I’ve done with you,–egg an’ bird!” She closed the door, shutting out Josiah and the keen spring wind, and went back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his voice jarred upon her tingling nerves.

“Well,” said he, more jovially than he was wont to speak, “I guess I’ve made a good trade for ye. Company gone? Come here an’ se’ down while I eat, an’ I’ll tell ye all about it.”

Amelia turned about and walked slowly up to him, by no volition of her conscious self. Again love, that august creature, veiled itself in an unjust anger, because it was love and nothing else.

“You’ve made a good bargain, have you?” she repeated. “You’ve sold my cows, an’ had ’em drove off the place without if or but. That’s what you call a good bargain!” Her voice frightened her. It amazed the man who heard. These two middle-aged people were waking up to passions neither had felt in youth. Life was strong in them because love was there.

“Why, ‘Melia!” said the man. “Why, ‘Melia!”

Amelia was hurried on before the wind of her destiny. Her voice grew sharper. Little white stripes, like the lashes from a whip, showed themselves on her cheeks. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, which left her no will save that of speaking.

“It’s been so ever sence you set foot in this house. Have I had my say once? Have I been mistress on my own farm? No! You took the head o’ things, an’ you’ve kep’ it. What’s mine is yours.”