On these occasions Gillian sometimes came by a little reprimand, not half as severe, so Mary jealously remarked, as was administered to her very lightest offense, but apparently more than Gillian could bear, for before it was half over she would fall into such a passion of tears and sobs as seemed fit to rend her white throat asunder, and either crouch moaning upon the floor in some corner like a wounded creature, or rush headlong from the house to the woods, where she would hide all day long, and once all night long, although Brewster and his three sons searched and called for her till sunrise, when she appeared on the edge of a thicket, her wonderful deep red hair hanging all matted and tangled, with briers around her shoulders, her great passionate Spanish eyes dilated and full of gloomy fire, and her mouth, that bewildering, tempting, ripe red mouth, with its myriad expressions and suggestions, its curves and dimples, and its little laughing teeth, all drawn and pale. Is it to be wondered at that, after the first few times, the uncle and guardian ceased to attempt even the discipline of a reproof, especially as for days after one of these passions the girl would shrink out of his presence with every mark of terror, and if he spoke to her, reply in hurried, timorous accents, with the air of one who dreads to give offense, and fears unmerited blame or misunderstanding. So at last it came to pass that Gillian did what she would, and left undone what she chose, and quietly setting at naught all Lucretia’s admonitions or attempts at control, was ever bright and charming to her uncle, and remained a wonder and a fascination to the boys, who were all wildly in love with her, a condition shared by nearly every unmarried man in the Old Colony. As for Mary, good, homely, ungraceful, slow moulded Mary Brewster, she wore herself thin and peevish in struggling against the innate depravity of her own heart which continually urged her to hate Gillian with a bitter hatred, more especially when John Turner, of Scituate, came a-wooing, and Gillian, having contemplated his courtship during a few visits, picked him up as a kitten might a great lumbering beetle, tossed him hither and yon, patted him with her velvet paws, suddenly thrust sharp claws through the velvet, gave him one or two contemptuous buffets to this side and to that, and finally walked away, purring serene indifference. John Turner was perhaps the only man at the apple-bee who saw nothing to admire in Gillian, and Mary never looked her way. But Betty liked her, and now, as the girl flitted into the great kitchen where around the baskets and piles of apples, brought together from all the neighborhood for Lucretia Brewster to dry in her own superlative fashion, crowded the maids and matrons, who pared and cored, and quartered or sliced, the rosy fruit, it was Betty Alden who cried,--