"There, now, dear, isn't the doll baby pretty?" she smiled. Ebenezer didn't take his gaze from the burning logs. "I'm not interested in dolls tonight." His tone was harsh and his manner studiously rude. Then, as though he'd finally determined to say something else, he looked around at her. "I taught Tess Skinner a lesson today I don't believe she'll forget," he burst forth savagely. The doll dropped from Helen's hands, its head striking sharply against the arm of her chair. "What do you mean?" she gasped. "You needn't get that expression on your face, my lady--" "Oh, Ebenezer!" interjected Helen, drearily. "What makes you act so? One would think you spent your whole time trying to get even with somebody." "I got even with my lady Skinner," smiled Waldstricker. "I gave her brat a whipping." The words came slowly, and the man watched their effect. Helen was not able to sense the full meaning of his statement at first. Mechanically, she rescued the doll and laid it on the table. Beginning to see the picture he'd suggested, she opened her mouth, closed it again and at the next attempt spoke. "Why, Ebenezer, Tessibel's baby is only a month or so older than Elsie!" "Well, what of it! He's an impudent little whelp. Takes after his mother, I suppose." "But you don't really mean you whipped him!" Helen exclaimed, still incredulous. "That's just what I do. With my riding whip. What do you think of that?" His words brought to Helen's recollection that other time he'd used his riding whip. Then it had been upon Mother Moll, and the old woman had screamed at him, "It air like ye to hit the awful young and the awful old." She recalled, too, the other mysterious words the witch woman had uttered. "Curls'll bring yer to yer knees--the little man air a settin' on yer chest!" The prophecy addressed to herself, that he'd make her life unhappy and that she'd leave him, she'd never before taken seriously. But the question hammered at her consciousness. Could it be that Moll had a second sight or something of the sort? Ebenezer's trouble about the squatters centered about Andy Bishop and the Skinner girl; the dwarf was certainly a little man and Tessibel had wonderful red curls. Her husband had made her life unhappy and his mood tonight was unusually ugly. She was touched with a superstitious half-conviction that the old woman's words would be fulfilled. "I asked you a question, Mrs. Waldstricker," the wrathful voice interrupted her meditations. "Answer me, if you please." Perhaps it was the recollection of Mother Moll's sibylline utterance; perhaps merely that her husband's hostile attitude aroused a corresponding feeling of animosity. At any rate, she sat erect in her chair and fixed her eyes upon his scowling face. Never had he seen her rounded chin so squarely set; never the red lips drawn into such determined lines.