The men were scraping their feet noisily now on the porch, and Mrs. Willis leaned back with a satisfied expression, expecting no reply. But Mrs. Wincoop surprised her. She was sewing the last pearl button on Mr. Wincoop’s night-shirt, and as she drew the thread through and fastened it with scrupulous care, she said, without looking up—“I don’t take much stock in confessings myself, Mis’ Willis. I don’t see just how confessings is good for the soul when they hurt so many innocent ones as well as the guilty ones. Ev’ry confessing affex somebody else; and so I say if you repent and want to atone you can do ’t without confessing and bringing disgrace on others. It’s nothing but curiosity that makes people holler out—‘Confess-up now! Confess-up now.’ It ain’t anybody’s business but God’s—and I reckon _He_ knows when a body’s sorry he’s sinned and wants to do better, and I reckon He helps him just as much as if he got up on a church tower and kep’ a-hollering out—‘Oh, good grieve, I’ve sinned! I’ve sinned!’—so’s the whole town could run and gap’ at him! Mis’ Willis, if some confessing-ups was done in this town that I know of, some people ’u’d be affected that ’u’d surprise you.” Then she lifted up her voice cheerfully—“That you, father? Well, d’ you bring the lantern? I reckon we’d best go right home; it’s getting latish, and Mis’ Willis thinks, from the way her arm aches her, that it’s going to rain.” Mrs. Willis sat knitting long after Mr. Willis had gone to bed. Her face was more stern even than usual. She sat uncomfortably erect and did not rock. When the clock told ten, she arose stiffly and rolled the half finished stocking around the ball of yarn, fastening it there with the needles. Then she laid it on the table and stood looking at it intently, without seeing it. “I wonder,” she said, at last, drawing a deep breath, “what she was a-driving at! I’d give a pretty to know.” * * * * * “Mother, where’s my Sund’y pulse-warmers at?” “_I_ don’t know where your Sund’y pulse-warmers are at. Father, you’d aggravate a body into her grave! You don’t half look up anything—and then begin asking me where it’s at. What’s under that bunch o’ collars in your drawer? Looks some like your Sund’y pulse-warmers, don’t it? This ain’t Sund’y, anyways. Wa’n’t your ev’ryday ones good enough to wear just to a church meeting?” Mr. Willis had never been known to utter an oath; but sometimes he looked as if his heart were full of them. “I reckon you don’t even know where your han’ke’cher’s at, father.” “Yes, I do, mother. I guess you might stop talking, an’ come on now—I’m all ready.”