Barney was silent.

"If you can't answer me I will go home," said Charlotte, and she turned, but Barney caught her in his arms. He held her close, breathing in great pants. He pulled her hood back with trembling strength, and kissed her over and over, roughly.

"Charlotte," he half sobbed.

Charlotte's voice, full of a great womanly indignation, sounded in his ear. "Barney, you let me go," she said, and Barney obeyed.

"When I came here alone this way I trusted you to treat me like a gentleman," said she. She pulled her hood over her face again and turned to go. "I shall never speak to you about this again," said she. "You have chosen your own way, and you know best whether it's right, or you're happy in it."

"I hope you'll be happy, Charlotte," Barney said, with a great sigh.

"That doesn't make any difference to you," said Charlotte, coldly.

"Yes, it does; it does, Charlotte! When I heard about Thomas Payne, I felt as if--if it would make you happy. I--"

"What about Thomas Payne?" asked Charlotte, sharply.

"I heard--how he was coming to see you--"

"Do you mean that you want me to marry Thomas Payne, Barney Thayer?"

"I want you to be happy, Charlotte."

"Do you want me to marry Thomas Payne?"

Barney was silent.

"Answer me," cried Charlotte.

"Yes, I do," replied Barney, firmly, "if it would make you happy."

"You want me to marry Thomas Payne?" repeated Charlotte. "You want me to be his wife instead of yours, and go to live with him instead of you? You want me to live with another man?"

"It ain't right for you not to get married," Barney said, and his voice was hoarse and strange.

"You want me to get married to another man? Do you know what it means?"

Barney gave a groan that was half a cry.

"Do you?"

"Oh, Charlotte!" Barney groaned, as if imploring her for pity.

"You want me to marry Thomas Payne, and live with him--"

"He'd--make you a good husband. He's--Charlotte--I can't. You've got to be happy. It isn't right--I can't--"

"Well," said Charlotte, "I will marry him. Good-night, Barney Thayer." She went swiftly out of the yard.

"Charlotte!" Barney called after her, as if against his will; but she never turned her head.

Chapter VII

On the north side of the old tavern was a great cherry orchard. In years back it had been a source of considerable revenue to Silas Berry, but for some seasons his returns from it had been very small.

The cherries had rotted on the branches, or the robins had eaten them, for Silas would not give them away. Rose and her mother would smuggle a few small baskets of cherries to Sylvia Crane and Mrs.

Barnard, but Silas's displeasure, had he found them out, would have been great. "I ain't a-goin' to give them cherries away to nobody,"

he would proclaim. "If folks don't want 'em enough to pay for 'em they can go without."

Many a great cherry picnic had been held in Silas Berry's orchard.

Parties had come in great rattling wagons from all the towns about, and picked cherries and ate their fill at a most overreaching and exorbitant price.

There were no cherries like those in Silas Berry's orchard in all the country roundabout. There was no competition, and for many years he had had it all his own way. The young people's appetite for cherries and their zeal for pleasure had overcome their indignation at his usury. But at last Silas's greed got the better of his financial shrewdness; he increased his price for cherries every season, and the year after the tavern closed it became so preposterous that there was a rebellion. It was headed by Thomas Payne, who, as the squire's son and the richest and most freehanded young man in town, could incur no suspicion of parsimony. Going one night to the old tavern to make terms with Silas for the use of his cherry orchard, for a party which included some of his college friends from Boston and his fine young-lady cousin from New York, and hearing the preposterous sum which Silas stated as final, he had turned on his heel with a strong word under his breath. "You can eat your cherries yourself and be damned," said Thomas Payne, and was out of the yard with the gay swagger which he had learned along with his Greek and Latin at college. The next day Silas saw the party in Squire Payne's big wagon, with Thomas driving, and the cousin's pink cheeks and white plumed hat conspicuous in the midst, pass merrily on their way to a cherryless picnic at a neighboring pond, and the young college men shouted out a doggerel couplet which the wit of the party had made and set to a rough tune.

"Who lives here?" the basses demanded in grim melody, and the tenors responded, "Old Silas Berry, who charges sixpence for a cherry."

Silas heard the mocking refrain repeated over and over between shouts of laughter long after they were out of sight.

Rose, who had not been bidden to the picnic, heard it and wept as she peered around her curtain at the gay party. William, who had also not been bidden, stormed at his father, and his mother joined him.

"You're jest a-puttin' your own eyes out, Silas Berry," said she; "you hadn't no business to ask such a price for them cherries; it's more than they are worth; folks won't stand it. You asked too much for 'em last year."

"I know what I'm about," returned Silas, sitting in his arm-chair at the window, with dogged chin on his breast.

"You wait an' see," said Hannah. "You've jest put your own eyes out."

And after-events proved that Hannah was right. Silas Berry's cherry orchard was subjected to a species of ostracism in the village. There were no more picnics held there, people would buy none of his cherries, and he lost all the little income which he had derived from them. Hannah often twitted him with it. "You can see now that what I told you was true," said she; "you put your own eyes out." Silas would say nothing in reply; he would simply make an animal sound of defiance like a grunt in his throat, and frown. If Hannah kept on, he would stump heavily out of the room, and swing the door back with a bang.

This season Hannah had taunted her husband more than usual with his ill-judged parsimony in the matter of the cherries. The trees were quite loaded with the small green fruit, and there promised to be a very large crop. One day Silas turned on her. "You wait," said he; "mebbe I know what I'm about, more'n you think I do."

Hannah scowled with sharp interrogation at her husband's shrewdly leering face. "What be you agoin' to do?" she demanded. But she got no more out of him.

One morning about two weeks before the cherries were ripe Silas went halting in a casual way across the south yard towards his daughter Rose, who was spreading out some linen to bleach. He picked up a few stray sticks on the way, ostentatiously, as if that were his errand.

Rose was spreading out the lengths of linen in a wide sunny space just outside the shade of the cherry-trees. Her father paused, tilted his head back, and eyed the trees with a look of innocent reflection.

Rose glanced at him, then she went on with her work.

"Guess there's goin' to be considerable many cherries this year,"

remarked her father, in an affable and confidential tone.

"I guess so," replied Rose, shortly, and she flapped out an end of the wet linen. The cherries were a sore subject with her.

"I guess there's goin' to be more than common," said Silas, still gazing up at the green boughs full of green fruit clusters.

Rose made no reply; she was down on her knees in the grass stretching the linen straight.