“Macauley’s is makin’ a big house-warmin’ this Chris’mas,” remarked Priscilla’s little suitor to her. “They’s four tables full of old folks to their turkey-roast, and the young folks all invited in the evenin’. I reckon the old lady’s doin’ it for Mart. She’s bound for him to marry that Miller girl, some says.” Priscilla replied, with pleasant nonchalance, she reckoned so. She did not look at Mart Macauley at all, but she saw him watching her while he untied his bay filly, and held its head until his mother finished talking with her dinner guests. He had loved Priscilla Thompson when she was a little girl with black plaits of hair hanging down her linsey back. In those days he gave her a bead purse, and whipped all her tormentors. When she began to be a big girl he shyly courted her, stopping his plough by the fence if he saw her coming, and dropping in of a Sunday night to see her brother, whom he despised, and who had since married and left him without excuse for his visits. When she got a certificate and went into the Kemmerer neighborhood to teach school, with her clothes neatly packed in a large wicker basket, he had no peace of mind all summer. He had himself been to Worthington to college, but in all his experience saw no one to compare with her. Wherever he saw her, so modest and lovely in manner, he cherished the ground her shoes rested on. The cold air gave her a bright color, which the depth and length of her bonnet could not conceal. She wore a wadded alpaca cloak and cloak cape, and Martin’s memory showed him how trimly under these her delaine dress was coat-sleeved to her arm and pointed at her waist. Mrs. Macauley, climbing into her own sleigh, could take no exceptions to Priscilla Thompson’s manner or appearance, though she would have done so gladly for the benefit of her favorite son. Mrs. Macauley disliked the Thompsons. Her husband before his death objected to them. She thought little Theophilus Gill the best match in the neighborhood for Priscilla Thompson. Her own large light-haired son was too dutiful to marry without her consent. She was educating him to be a doctor; the younger boys could work the farm under her direction. She expected Martin to do his family credit by looking higher than the Thompsons. Priscilla, on her part, held Mrs. Macauley in secret aversion. She felt sorry for Martin’s younger brothers and sisters, who were all obliged to stand in a row and take pills or tincture before breakfast. Mrs. Macauley was too high-handed and all-prevailing. Priscilla’s disposition was cheerful, but that Ohio region known as the Swamp could not escape the tinge of the period, and at that date the extremely feminine woman with a bias toward melancholy was the standard. Mrs. Macauley was so mannish that Priscilla thought her fully entitled to the tufts of beard in her moles.