There was an anxious flush on her usually pale face. Her eyes were bright and restless. The irritation of not being able to reconcile her father’s opinions with the prospect of success was smouldering in her manner, and suddenly flamed out in words. “From all I hev seen, ye air likely ter take the Lord’s jobs off’n his hands. He needn’t bother ’bout repayin’ nobody in Brumsaidge, whar sech a headin’ man ez ye air be a-loose. Ye’ll repay. Ye wouldn’t let Jake Baintree git baptized, kase ye ’low he killed a man ez the jury say he didn’t kill, an ’kase ye fund somebody’s old clothes hid somewhar. Mebbe he’ll never git ter the baptizin’ p’int agin. He can’t get the sperit whenst he wants it; he can’t whistle it back like a dog that follows him.” “Ef he ever hed the sperit no man kin harm him. Did he gin Sam’l Keale time ter think on salvation? Ez the Lord bade me, so I did act,” he protested. She relapsed into silence. “Jake Baintree be plumb cur’ous,” said Isabel, knitting her brows, and laughing,—a constrained demonstration that had no mirth in it. She had wearied of the discussion, which she scarcely understood, and resorted with a freshened zest to gossip. “How be he cur’ous?” demanded Jepson. “Waal,” said Isabel, twisting the corner of her apron in and out of her fingers, “he _looks_ cur’ous. An’ he sets an’ stare-gazes an’ stare-gazes the fire. An’ he kin read an’ write. He larnt in jail. An’ his folks dunno what ter make o’ him, nohow. He don’t talk none, sca’cely. They ’low he war jes’ a boy whenst he went away, an’ now he be a plumb differ, ez ef he war somebody else. Mebbe he air somebody else.” Isabel paused, with a contortion of the countenance, showing all her jagged teeth, as if she sought to express in some facial way the extreme curiousness of Jake Baintree. “How do ye know so much about him?” demanded Jepson, surprised. “Marcelly, she useter go thar a heap, an’ I jes’ up an’ go with Marcelly. Marcelly, she useter tote ’em things, whenst they war so powerful pore an’ tormented how ter git along,—roastin’-ears an’ ’taters,—and holped ’em weave some. She war holpin’ ’em weave whenst he kem home.” A sudden repulsion seized Teck Jepson. “_He_ ain’t the frequent vis’tor?” he exclaimed. Marcella drew back, with an abrupt cry. “Jake Baintree!” she said in horror. There was a moment of embarrassment. He had his regrets that he had spoken, and she had hers that she had answered. With a woman’s tact, she would have passed it by. But he made a blundering, clumsy attempt to better the situation, and asked, with a feint of mirth, “Who be that thar frequent vis’tor, ennyhows?” “Ye kin hev that fur a riddle,” she said, with a chilly accent. She glanced loftily past him, as she rose. “Kem ’long, Is’bel; it’s quit rainin’, an’ we hed better be a-startin’.”