“You don’t know that she married him for any such thing,” protested Freelove, stoutly, although he had started on this very expedition with a gay contempt for Deborah White. She was a very pretty girl, and once, before he had dared address Lydia Hersey, people had coupled his name with hers. He had gone home with her from singing-school, and kissed her once at a husking. “Stand up for a girl like that if you want to,” said Lydia. She had always had a lurking jealousy of Deborah Belcher. Deborah’s hair was very fair, and she had a delicate evanescent bloom like a wild rose. Lydia had often wondered if Deborah were not prettier than she herself, and if men did not love fair hair better than black. Freelove Keith did not continue the dispute; he looked uneasily after his comrades, who were nearly out of sight, even at their slow lingering pace. Now and then the note of a conch shell was heard. “I must go,” said he. “Good-day, Lydia.” “Do you mean that you are really going with that noisy crew to blow conch shells under Abraham White’s windows, Freelove Keith?” “Yes, I am going, Lydia Hersey,” returned the young man, hotly; “and if you thought I’d be ordered back by you before them all, like a whipped puppy, you were mightily mistaken.” Lydia stared at him, she was so full of proud amazement that she would say nothing; this Freelove Keith had often fretted beneath her rule, but never before openly resisted it. “Go back to your flax-carding, Lydia,” said Freelove, in a softer tone. “See, the flax is blowing all over the yard. I shall be up to see you after supper.” Then Lydia found her tongue. “You haven’t been asked to come that I know of,” said she. “I don’t know as I care to keep company with young men that go blowing horns and shouting through the street, and disturbing decent people.” “Then you needn’t,” retorted Freelove. He went quickly down the road after his companions. He was dressed like a farmer, in slouching homespun, but there was a certain jaunty grace about him, and a free swing in his gait, which did not accord with his appearance. He had followed the sea for a living, going as mate on a merchantman, and had been home only for a year and a half, since his father’s death, managing the farm. Lydia went back to the house. She stepped as if she bore a crown on her head instead of a tortoise-shell comb, and had a train to her cotton gown. The wind had indeed stirred the linen cloth, and bits of flax were floating about the yard, but she ignored that. She would not so far unbend her dignity as to gather it up, even with nobody but herself for witness. She folded the linen cloth firmly over the remaining flax, and placed her foot in its buckled shoe on it when she sat down. She fell to work with the cards again. The wild clamor of horns, which she had heard break forth when Freelove joined his comrades, died away in the distance.