"I'll show you my bonnet," said Charlotte. She went into a closet and emerged with a great green bandbox.

Rose bent over, watching her breathlessly as she opened it. "Oh!" she cried. "Oh, Charlotte!"

Charlotte held up the bonnet of fine Dunstable straw, flaring in front, and trimmed under the brim with a delicate lace ruche and a wreath of feathery white flowers. Bows of white gauze ribbon stood up from it stiffly. Long ribbon strings floated back over her arm as she held it up.

"Try it on," said Rose.

Charlotte stepped before the glass and adjusted the bonnet to her head. She tied the strings carefully under her chin in a great square bow; then she turned towards Rose. The fine white wreath under the brim encircled her face like a nimbus; she looked as she might have done sitting a bride in the meeting-house.

"It's beautiful," Rose said, smiling, with grave eyes. "You look real handsome in it, Charlotte." Charlotte stood motionless a moment, with Rose surveying her.

"Oh, Charlotte," Rose cried out, suddenly, "I don't believe but what you'll have him, after all!" Rose's eyes were sharp upon Charlotte's face. It was as if the bridal robes, which were so evident, became suddenly proofs of something tangible and real, like a garment left by a ghost. Rose felt a sudden conviction that the quarrel was but a temporary thing; that Charlotte would marry Barney, and that she knew it.

A change came over Charlotte's face. She began untying the bonnet strings.

"Sha'n't you?" repeated Rose, breathlessly.

"No, I sha'n't."

Charlotte took the bonnet off and smoothed the creases carefully out of the strings.

"If I were you," Rose cried out, "I'd feel like tearing that bonnet to pieces!"

Charlotte replaced it in the bandbox, and began unfastening her dress.

"I don't see how you can bear the sight of them. I don't believe I could bear them in the house!" Rose cried out again. "I would put that dress in the rag-bag if it was mine!" Her cheeks burned and her eyes were quite fierce upon the dress as Charlotte slipped it off and it fell to the floor in a rustling heap around her.

"I don't see any sense in losing everything you have ever had because you haven't got anything now," Charlotte returned, in a stern voice.

She laid the shining silk gown carefully on the bed, and put on her cotton one again. Her face was quite steady.

Rose watched her with the same sharp question in her eyes. "You know you and Barney will make it up," she said, at length.

"No, I don't," returned Charlotte. "Suppose we go down-stairs now.

I've got some work I ought to do."

Charlotte pulled down the green paper shades of the windows, and went out of the room. Rose followed. Charlotte turned to go down-stairs, but Rose caught her arm.

"Wait a minute," said she. "Look here, Charlotte."

"What is it?"

"Charlotte," said Rose again; then she stopped.

Charlotte turned and looked at her. Rose's eyes met hers, and her face had a noble expression.

"You write a note to him, and I'll carry it," said Rose. "I'll go down in the field where he is, on my way home."

Tears sprang into Charlotte's eyes. "You're real good, Rose," she said; "but I can't."

"Hadn't you better?"

"No; I can't. Don't let's talk any more about it."

Charlotte pushed past Rose's detaining hand, and the girls went down-stairs. Mrs. Barnard looked around dejectedly at them as they entered the kitchen. Her eyes were red, and her mouth drooping; she was clearing the debris of the pies from the table; there was a smell of baking, but Cephas had gone out. She tried to smile at Rose. "Are you goin' now?" said she.

"Yes; I've got to. I've got to sew on my muslin dress. When are you coming over, Aunt Sarah? You haven't been over to our house for an age."

"I don't care if I never go anywhere!" cried Sarah Barnard, with sudden desperation. "I'm discouraged." She sank in a chair, and flung her apron over her face.

"Don't, mother," said Charlotte.

"I can't help it," sobbed her mother. "You're young and you've got more strength to bear it, but mine's all gone. I feel worse about you than if it was myself, an' there's so much to put up with besides. I don't feel as if I could put up with things much longer, nohow."

"Uncle Cephas ought to be ashamed of himself!" Rose cried out.

Sarah stood up. "Well, I don't s'pose I have so much to put up with as some folks," she said, catching her breath as if it were her dignity. "Your Uncle Cephas means well. It did seem as if them sorrel pies were the last straw, but I hadn't ought to have minded it."

"You haven't got to eat sorrel pies, have you?" Rose asked, in a bewildered way.

"I don't s'pose they'll be any worse than some other things we eat,"

Sarah answered, scraping the pie-board again.

"I don't see how you can."

"I guess they won't hurt us any," Sarah said, shortly, and Rose looked abashed.

"Well, I must be going," said she.

As she went out, she looked hesitatingly at Charlotte. "Hadn't you better?" she whispered. Charlotte shook her head, and Rose went out into the spring sunlight. She bent her head as she went down the road before the sweet gusts of south wind; the white apple-trees seemed to sing, for she could not see the birds in them.

Rose's face between the green sides of her bonnet had in it all the quickened bloom of youth in spring; her eyes had all the blue surprise of violets; she panted softly between red swelling lips as she walked; pulses beat in her crimson cheeks. Her slender figure yielded to the wind as to a lover. She passed Barney Thayer's new house; then she came opposite the field where he was at work ploughing, driving a white horse, stooping to his work in his blue frock.

Rose stood still and looked at him; then she walked on a little way; then she paused again. Barney never looked around at her. There was the width of a field between them.

Finally Rose went through the open bars into the first field. She crossed it slowly, holding up her skirts where there was a wet gleam through darker grass, and getting a little nosegay of violets with a busy air, as if that were what she had come for. She passed through the other bars into the second field, and Barney was only a little way from her. He did not glance at her then. He was ploughing with the look that Cadmus might have worn preparing the ground for the dragon's teeth.

Rose held up her skirts, and went along the furrows behind him.

"Hullo, Barney," she said, in a trembling voice.

"Hullo," he returned, without looking around, and he kept on, with Rose following.

"Barney," said she, timidly.

"Well?" said Barney, half turning, with a slight show of courtesy.

"Do you know if Rebecca is at home?"

"I don't know whether she is or not."