William compressed his lips. "About two and a half, father."

"How many?"

"Two and a half."

"How many dozen of eggs?"

"Two."

"You ain't offerin' of her two pound of sugar for two dozen eggs?"

"I said two pounds and a half of sugar, father," said William. He began counting the eggs.

"Be you gone crazy?"

"Never mind," whispered Rebecca. "That's too much sugar for the eggs.

Mother didn't expect so much. Don't say any more about it, William."

Her face was quite steady and self-possessed now, as she looked at William, frowning heavily over the eggs.

"Give Rebecca two pounds of sugar for the eggs, father, and call it square," Rose called out.

Silas Berry pulled himself up a joint at a time; then he came forward at a stiff halt, his face pointing out in advance of his body. He entered at the gap in the counter, and pressed close to his son's side. Then he looked sharply across at Rebecca. "Sugar is fourteen cents a pound now," said he, "an' eggs ain't fetchin' more'n ten cents a dozen. You tell your mother."

"Father, I told her I'd giver her two and a half pounds for two dozen," said William; he was quite pale. He began counting the eggs over again, and his hands trembled.

"I'll take just what you're willing to give," Rebecca said to Silas.

"Sugar is fourteen cents a pound, an' eggs is fetchin' ten cents a dozen," said the old man; "you can have a pound and a half of sugar for them eggs if you can give me a cent to boot."

Rebecca colored. "I'm afraid I haven't got a cent with me," said she; "I didn't fetch my purse. You'll have to give me a cent's worth less sugar, Mr. Berry."

"It's kinder hard to calkilate so close as that," returned Silas, gravely; "you had better tell your mother about it, an' you come back with the cent by-an'-by."

"Why, father!" cried Rose.

William shouldered his father aside with a sudden motion. "I'm tending to this, father," he said, in a stern whisper; "you leave it alone."

"I ain't goin' to stan' by an' see you givin' twice as much for eggs as they're worth 'cause it's a gal you're tradin' with. That wa'n't never my way of doin' business, an' I ain't goin' to have it done in my store. I shouldn't have laid up a cent if I'd managed any such ways, an' I ain't goin' to see my hard earnin's wasted by you. You give her a pound and a half of sugar for them eggs and a cent to boot."

"You sha'n't lose anything by it, father," said William, fiercely.

"You leave me alone."

The sugar-barrel stood quite near. William strode over to it, and plunged in the great scoop with a grating noise. He heaped it recklessly on some paper, and laid it on the steelyards.

"Don't give me more'n a pound and a half," Rebecca said, softly.

"Keep still," Rose whispered in her ear.

Silas pushed forward, and bent over the steelyards. "You've weighed out nigh three," he began. Then his son's face suddenly confronted his, and he stopped talking and stood back.

Almost involuntarily at times Silas Berry yielded to the combination of mental and superior physical force in his son. While his own mind had lost nothing of its vigor, his bodily weakness made him distrustful of it sometimes, when his son towered over him in what seemed the might of his own lost strength and youth, brandishing his own old weapons.

William tied up the sugar neatly; then he took the eggs from Rebecca's basket, and put the parcel in their place. Silas began lifting the eggs from the box in which William had put them, and counted them eagerly.

"There ain't but twenty-three eggs here," he called out, as Rebecca and Rose turned away, and William was edging after them from behind the counter.

"I thought there were two dozen," Rebecca responded, in a distressed voice.

"Of course there are two dozen," said Rose, promptly. "You 'ain't counted 'em right, father. Go along, Rebecca; it's all right."

"I tell ye it ain't," said Silas. "There ain't but twenty-three. It's bad enough to be payin' twice what they're wuth for eggs, without havin' of 'em come short."

"I tell you I counted 'em twice over, and they're all right. You keep still, father," said William's voice at his ear, in a fierce whisper, and Silas subsided into sullen mutterings.

William had meditated following Rebecca to the door; he had even meditated going farther; but now he stood back behind the counter, and began packing up some boxes with a busy air.

"Ain't you going a piece with Rebecca, and carry her basket, William?" Rose called back, when the two girls reached the door.

Rebecca clutched her arm. "Oh, don't," she gasped, and Rose giggled.

"Ain't you, William?" she said again.

Rebecca hurried out the door, but she heard William reply coldly that he couldn't, he was too busy. She was half crying when Rose caught up with her.

"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.

"How much did he give you?" asked Deborah Thayer; she was standing beside the window beating eggs. Over in the field she could catch a glimpse of Barnabas now and then between the trees as he passed with his plough.

"About two pounds."

"That was doin' pretty well."