Reuben, naturally enough, would have kept her there and questioned her, but she ran back into the cottage before he could detain her, and after lingering a while bareheaded before the casket which held her, he took his way back to Fuller and gave him his daughter's message. “Ah!” said Fuller. “At that rate it 'ud seem to be pretty well straightened out betwigst 'em. I'm glad to think it, for theer's nothin' like, harmony among them as is tied together. But hows'ever her an' the wench may mek it up, Reuben, thee'lt be a villin till the end o' the chapter.” The villany attributed to Reuben and Ezra tickled the old man greatly, and his fat body was so agitated by his mirth that his legs became unequal to their burden. He had to drop into his great cushioned arm-chair to have his laugh out. “That villany o' thine 'll be the death o' me,” he said, as he wiped his eyes. Rachel and Ruth sat far into the night, and the old maid told over and over again the story of the courtship and the misunderstanding between herself and Ezra. “Even when he was young,” she told her listener often, “he was shy and proud. And he would think I had treated him as though he had been the dirt beneath my feet. I did. I did. He will never forgive me. Never, never.” She always cried afresh tempestuously at this, but when the first passion of her grief had worn itself out she came back to her story and lauded Ezra without stint. He was proud, oh yes, he was proud, but then it was not in a way to hurt anybody. He joined in the sports of the other young men when she was quite a girl, a mere chit of a thing, my dear, and he was master of them all. Then Ruth chimed in. And so was Reuben now. Reuben was not like the rest of them. He was their master in everything, and everybody who was old enough to remember said that he was more like his uncle than like his father even. The duet of praise, accompanied by the old maid's tears, murmured along for an hour. “You will meet him now?” Ruth suggested, rather timidly. “You will be friends again?” “We could never bear to meet each other,” cried Rachel. “How could I come before him?” Then, “I must go away.” “No, no,” Ruth pleaded, “you must not go away. You must stay here. You must be friends again. What shall we tell him, dear? He has found the letter at last, and he sends to you. Can you let him think that you are still against him?” “No,” said Rachel, almost wildly. “You will tell him I went away because I could not bear to see him. I ought to have known him too well to have thought so basely of him.”