Araminta smiled--a lovable, winning smile. "No, I haven't had any 'stroke,' but I've made all the quilts I'm going to until I get to be an old woman, and have nothing else to do."
"What are you layin' out to do, Minty?" demanded Miss Mehitable.
"I'm going to be outdoors all I want to, and I'm going up to Miss Evelina's and play with my kitten, and help you with the housework, or do anything else you want me to do, but--no more quilts," concluded the girl, firmly.
"Araminta Lee!" cried Miss Mehitable, speech having returned. "If I ain't ashamed of you! Here's your poor old aunt that's worked her fingers to the bone, slaving for you almost ever since the day you was born, and payin' a doctor's outrageous bill of four dollars and a half--or goin' to pay," she corrected, her conscience reproaching her, "and you refusin' to mind!
"Haven't I took good care of you all these eighteen years? Haven't I set up with you when you was sick and never let you out of my sight for a minute, and taught you to be as good a housekeeper as any in Rushton, and made you into a first-class seamstress, and educated you myself, and looked after your religious training, and made your clothes? Ain't I been father and mother and sister and brother and teacher and grandparents all rolled into one? And now you're refusin' to make quilts!"
Araminta's heart reproached her, but the blood of some fighting ancestor was in her pulses now. "I know, Aunt Hitty," she said, kindly, "you've done all that and more, and I'm not in the least ungrateful, though you may think so. But I'm not going to make any more quilts!"
"Araminta Lee," said Miss Mehitable, warningly, "look careful where you're steppin'. Hell is yawning in front of you this very minute!"
Araminta smiled sweetly. Since the day the minister had gone to see her, she had had no fear of hell. "I don't see it, Aunt Hitty," she said, "but if everybody who hasn't pieced more than eight quilts by hand is in there, it must be pretty crowded."
"Araminta Lee," cried Miss Mehitable, "you're your mother all over again. She got just as high-steppin' as you before her downfall, and see where she ended at. She was married," concluded the accuser, scornfully, "yes, actually married!"
"Aunt Hitty," said Araminta, her sweet mouth quivering ever so little, "your mother was married, too, wasn't she?" With this parting shaft, the girl went out of the room, her head held high.
Miss Mehitable stared after her, uncomprehending. Slowly it dawned upon her that some one had been telling tales and undoing her careful work. "Minty! Minty!" she cried, "how can you talk to me so!"