In the first place I
won't stand it; and, in the second, if you and me are goin' to be
sisters-in-law, we'd better learn how to get along peaceable together.
I--"
"Don't you talk to me! Don't you DARE talk to me! I might have expected
it! I did expect it. So this is why you two didn't go to the Fair? You
had this all planned between you. I was to be got out of the way, and--"
"That's enough of that, too. There wasn't any plannin' about it--not
until today, anyhow. I didn't know he wasn't goin' to the Fair and he
didn't know I wasn't. He would have gone only--only you deserted him to
go off with your own--your own gentleman friend. Humph! I should think
you would look ashamed!"
Miss Parker's "shame"--or her feelings, whatever they might be--seemed
to render her speechless. Her brother saw his chance.
"You know that's just what you done, Hannah," he put in, pleadingly.
"You know you did. I was so lonesome--"
"Hush! Hush, Kenelm!" ordered Imogene. "You left him alone to go with
another man, Miss Parker. For all he knew you might be--be runnin' off
to be married, or somethin'. So he come to where he had a friend, that's
all. And what if he did? He can get married, if he wants to, can't he?
I'd like to know who'd stop him. He's over twenty-one, I guess."
This speech was too much for Emily; she laughed aloud. That laugh was
the final straw. Hannah made a dive for her brother.
"You come home with me," she commanded. "You come right straight home
with me this minute.
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