Picture how I felt, then, when not six weeks later, on a morning all yellow and blue and green, and tied onto itself with flowers, little Mrs. Bride came standing at my side door, knocking on the screen, and her face all tear-stained. "Gracious, now," I says, "did breakfast burn?" She came in. She always wore white dresses and little doll caps in the morning, and she sit down at the end of my dining-room table, looking like a rosebud in trouble. "Oh, Miss Marsh," she says, "it isn't any laughing matter. Something's happened between us. We've spoke cross to each other." "Well, well," I says, "what was that for?" I s'posed maybe he'd criticized the popovers, or something equally universal had occurred. "_That_ was it," she says. "We've spoke cross to each other, Miss Marsh." And then it came to me that it didn't seem to be bothering her at all what it was about. The only thing that stuck out for her was that they'd spoke cross to each other. "So!" I says. "And you've got to wait all day long before you can patch it up. Why don't you call him up?" I ask her. "It's only twenty cents for the three minutes--and you can get it all in that." She shook her head. "That's the worst of it," she says. "I can't do it. Neither can he. I'm not that sort--to be able to give in after I've been mad and spoke harsh. I'm--I'm afraid neither of us will, even when he gets home." Then I sat up straight. This, I see, was serious--most as serious as she thought. "What's the reason?" says I. "I dunno," she says. "We're like that--both of us. We're awful proud--no matter how much we want to give in, we can't." I sat looking at her. "Call him up," I says. She shook her head again and made her pretty mouth all tight. "I couldn't," she says. "I couldn't." She seemed to like to sit and talk it over, kind of luxurious. She told me how it began--some twopenny thing about screens in the parlor window. She told me how one thing led to another. I let her talk and I sat there thinking. Pretty soon she went home and she never sung once all day. It didn't seem as if anybody's screens were worth that. I'm not one that's ashamed of looking at anything I'm interested in. When it came time for the folks from the afternoon local, I sat down in my parlor behind the Nottinghams. I saw she never came out to the gate. And when he came home I could see her white dress out in the back garden where she was pretending to work. He sat down on the front porch and smoked, and seemed to read the paper. She came in the house after a while, and finally she appeared in the front door for three-fourths of a second. "Your supper's ready for you," I heard her say. And then I knew, certain sure, how they were both sitting there at their table not speaking a word.