"Ralph," Said Araminta--and the way she spoke his name made it a caress--"Ralph came home with me."
"I saw you comin' home," continued Miss Mehitable, with her sharp eyes keenly fixed upon the culprit. "I saw his arm around your waist and you leanin' your head on his shoulder."
"Yes," laughed Araminta, "I haven't forgotten. I can feel his arms around me now."
"And at the gate--you needn't deny it, for I saw it all--he KISSED you!"
"That's right, Aunt Hitty. At his house, he kissed me, too, lots and lots of times. And," she added, her eyes meeting her accuser's clearly, "I kissed him."
"How do you suppose I feel to see such goin's on, after all I've done for you?"
"You needn't have looked, Aunty, if you didn't like to see it."
"Do you know where I went when I went out? I went up to Deacon Robinson's to lay your case before him." Miss Mehitable paused, for the worthy deacon was the fearsome spectre of young sinners.
Araminta executed an intricate dance step of her own devising, but did not seem interested in the advice he had given.
"He told me," went on Miss Mehitable, in the manner of a judge pronouncing sentence upon a criminal, "that at any cost I must trample down this godless uprising, and assert my rightful authority. 'Honour thy father and thy mother,' the Bible says, and I'm your father and mother, rolled into one. He said that if I couldn't make you listen in any other way, it would be right and proper for me to shut you up in your room and keep you on bread and water until you came to your senses."
Araminta giggled. "I wouldn't be there long," she said. "How funny it would be for Ralph to come with a ladder and take me out!"
"Araminta Lee, what do you mean?"
"Why," explained the girl, "we're going to be married--Ralph and I."
A nihilist bomb thrown into the immaculate kitchen could not have surprised Miss Mehitable more. She had no idea that it had gone so far. "Married!" she gasped. "You!"
"Not just me alone, Aunty, but Ralph and I. There has to be two, and I'm of age, so I can if I want to." This last heresy had been learned from Ralph, only the night before.
"Married!" gasped Miss Mehitable, again.
"Yes," returned Araminta, firmly, "married. My mother was married, and Ralph's mother was married, and your mother was married. Everybody's mother is married, and Mr. Thorpe says it's the nearest there is to Heaven. He was going to be married himself, but she died.