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“Mother, it was dreadful! I never wish to hear a fiddle again as long as I live!”

Rachel opened the way for Dorothy to speak further; she was not without some mild stirrings of curiosity on the subject herself; but Dorothy had no more to say.

They went into the house soon after, and as they separated for the night, Dorothy clung to her mother with a little nervous laugh.

“Mother, what is that text about Ephraim?”

“Ephraim is joined to idols?” Rachel suggested.

“Yes! Ephraim is joined to his idols!” said Dorothy, lifting her head. “Let him go!”

“Let him alone,” corrected Rachel.

“Let him alone! ” Dorothy repeated. “That is better yet.”

“What’s thee thinking of, dear?”

“Oh, I’m thinking about the dance in the barn.”

“I’m glad thee looks at it in that light,” said Rachel.

* * * * *

Dorothy knelt by her bed in the low chamber under the eaves, crying to herself that she was not the child of her mother any more.

She felt she had lost something, which, in truth, had never been hers. It was only the unconscious poise of her unawakened girlhood which had been stirred. She had mistaken it for that abiding peace which is not lost or won in a day.

Dorothy could not stifle the spring thrills in her blood any more than she could crush its color out of her cheek or brush the ripples out of her bright hair, but she longed for the cool grays and the still waters. She prayed that the “grave and beautiful damsel called Discretion” might take her by the hand and lead her to that “upper chamber, whose name is Peace.” She lay awake, listening to the music from the barn, and waiting through breathless silences for it to begin again. She wondered if Fanny Jordan had grown any prettier since she had seen her as a half-grown girl; and then she despised herself for the thought. The katydids seemed to beat their wings upon her brain, and all the noises of the night, far and near, came to her strained senses, as if her silent chamber were a whispering gallery. The clock struck twelve, and in the silence that followed she missed the music; but voices, talking and laughing, were coming down the lane. There was the clink of a horse’s hoof on the stones; now it was lost on the turf; and now they were all trooping noisily past the house. She buried her head in her pillow, and tried to bury with it the consciousness that she was wondering if Evesham were there, laughing with the rest.

Yes, Evesham was there. He walked with Farmer Jordan, behind the young men and girls, and discussed with him, somewhat absently, the war news and the prices of grain.

As they passed the dark old house, spreading its wide roofs, like a hen gathering her chickens under her wing, he became suddenly silent. A white curtain flapped in and out of an upper window. It was the window of the boys’ room; but Evesham’s instincts failed him there.

“Queer kinks them old Friend preachers git into their heads sometimes!” said farmer Jordan, as they passed the empty mill. “Now what do you s’pose took Uncle Tommy Barton off right on top of plantin’, leavin’ his wife ‘n’ critters ‘n’ child’en to look after themselves? Mighty good preachin’ it ought to be, to make up for such practicin’. Wonderful set ag’in the war, Uncle Tommy is! He’s a-preachin’ up peace now. But Lord! all the preachin’ sence Moses won’t keep men from fightin’ when their blood’s up and there’s ter’tory in it!”

“It makes saints of the women,” said Evesham shortly.

“Wal, yes! Saints in heaven before their time, some of ’em. There’s Dorothy, now. She’ll hoe her row with any saint in

the kingdom or out of it. I never see a hulsomer-lookin’ gal. My Luke, he run the furrers in her corn-patch last May. Said it made him sick to see a gal like that a-staggerin’ after a plow. She wouldn’t more’n half let him! She’s a proud little piece. They’re all proud, Quakers is. I never could see no ‘poorness of spirit,’ come to git at ’em! And they’re wonderful clannish, too. My Luke, he’d a notion he’d like to run the hull concern–Dorothy ‘n’ all; but I told him he might ‘s well p’int off. Them Quaker gals don’t never marry out o’ meetin’. Besides, the farm’s too poor!”