“Whar’bouts?” cried Andy Longwood, with a poignant note of surprise, deprivation, and despair. “I never hearn nuthin’ ’bout’n it. I dunno why they never invited me,” he added, with surly resentment. As he gazed up at her, he could not interpret the glance of scorn and reproach that she cast upon him. Then she did not lift her eyes again, but busied herself in her spinning, while Eli Strobe, catching at the subject, logically descanted upon the sin of dancing, and described with a fervid imagination the experiences which its votaries would encounter in the next world as retribution. The “frequent visitor” hardly listened, so mystified was he by the taunt of Marcella’s glance and the news of the airy pleasuring on Chilhowee, in his own neighborhood, in which he had been, for some unimagined reason, debarred from participating. If it were not so inexplicable, he might have believed that she had invented the circumstance, and relied upon his tact to confirm her statement, and thus set Eli Strobe off on a theological hobby. He wondered, hearing vaguely of fiery furnaces and furious brimstone, if the doctor considered this a pleasing and wholesome subject of contemplation. It might have lasted longer if the polemic had had a stronger opposition. Marcella sought to furnish this, but paternal tenderness rendered her effort of no avail. “Of course I ain’t talkin’ ’bout ye dancin’ at the party las’ Christmus, Marcelly. Did ye think I meant that fur you-uns? That war wunst in a while,—a leetle dancin’ an’ fun, jes’ wunst in a while.” For there are exceptions to every zealot’s cherished theory of damnation, and the imminent terrors of hell must be abrogated in favor of one’s own. And thus the discourse came to an end. “Andy,” he said, breaking off abruptly, “hev ye hearn ennybody in the Cove ’low ez I war ter blame?” Once more Marcella looked at her youthful lover, her eyes dilated, pleading. He began to understand that there was more here than appeared upon the surface, and he wished that he had been guided by her monitions and had taken his leave. He gazed at her earnestly, desirous of saying what she wanted him to say; but he could read naught in her eyes save her remonstrance, fear, and reproach. And yet he must answer. “I hev hearn some,” he faltered, dolorously truthful. “Waal, they hain’t got no right ter blame me,” retorted Eli Strobe. His color had risen; his eyes flashed. “I’ll be bound, though,—cowardly curs!—they don’t dare ter do nuthin’ but talk; they ain’t got the grit ter try ter set the law onter _me_! They jes’ set ’round at the store an’ the forge, an’ bob thar hats tergether, an’ whisper, an’ talk, an’ talk.” He grimaced with a mimicry of secrecy and malice, and bobbed his own head with an alacrity that made the young fellow wince, remembering the reports of how variously his skull was fractured, and seeing the way in which it was presumably bound together.