"Yes," admitted Araminta, cheerfully, "I did all those things, and I put my hair up loosely instead of tightly, as you've always taught me. You forgot that." "No, I didn't," denied Miss Mehitable, vigorously; "I was coming to that. Didn't you go up to Miss Evelina's without asking me if you could, and didn't you go bareheaded, as I've never allowed you to do?" "Yes," laughed Araminta, "I did." "After I went away," pursued Miss Mehitable, swiftly approaching her climax, "didn't you go up to Doctor Dexter's like a shameless hussy?" "If it makes a shameless hussy of me to go to Doctor Dexter's, that's what I am." "You went there to see Doctor Ralph Dexter, didn't you?" "Yes, I did," sang Araminta, "and oh, Aunt Hitty, he was there! He was there!" "Ain't I told you," demanded Miss Mehitable, "how one woman went up there when she had no business to go and got burnt so awful that she has to wear a veil all the rest of her life?" "Yes, you told me, Aunt Hitty, but, you see, I didn't get burned." "Araminta Lee, you're going right straight to hell, just as fast as you can get there. Perdition is yawning at your feet. Didn't that blackmailing play-doctor come home with you?" "Ralph," Said Araminta--and the way she spoke his name made it a caress--"Ralph came home with me." "I saw you comin' home," continued Miss Mehitable, with her sharp eyes keenly fixed upon the culprit. "I saw his arm around your waist and you leanin' your head on his shoulder." "Yes," laughed Araminta, "I haven't forgotten. I can feel his arms around me now." "And at the gate--you needn't deny it, for I saw it all--he KISSED you!" "That's right, Aunt Hitty. At his house, he kissed me, too, lots and lots of times. And," she added, her eyes meeting her accuser's clearly, "I kissed him." "How do you suppose I feel to see such goin's on, after all I've done for you?" "You needn't have looked, Aunty, if you didn't like to see it." "Do you know where I went when I went out? I went up to Deacon Robinson's to lay your case before him." Miss Mehitable paused, for the worthy deacon was the fearsome spectre of young sinners. Araminta executed an intricate dance step of her own devising, but did not seem interested in the advice he had given. "He told me," went on Miss Mehitable, in the manner of a judge pronouncing sentence upon a criminal, "that at any cost I must trample down this godless uprising, and assert my rightful authority. 'Honour thy father and thy mother,' the Bible says, and I'm your father and mother, rolled into one. He said that if I couldn't make you listen in any other way, it would be right and proper for me to shut you up in your room and keep you on bread and water until you came to your senses." Araminta giggled. "I wouldn't be there long," she said. "How funny it would be for Ralph to come with a ladder and take me out!" "Araminta Lee, what do you mean?" "Why," explained the girl, "we're going to be married--Ralph and I."