His father looked at him with greater severity than he had ever before exercised upon his only child.

"I reckon, Ephraim, that you speak without using the sense that the Almighty has been mercifully pleased to give you.

You know, Ephraim, the girl has been as a daughter in this house.

When has it been said to her that her father, dying in his worldly follies, left her destitute, the pittance she gets needing to go for his debts?
She's had about as good a home as any girl should want, and your mother and the ministers have dealt faithfully with her concerning her soul." Ephraim made a movement of the head as if for a moment he could have stood upright, feeling in one respect innocent; then again there was nothing but the droop of shame visible.
His mother looked at him with eyes that were red with weeping.

She had been wiping them with fierce furtive rubs of her handkerchief; now she was rubbing the handkerchief, a hard ball, in the palm of one hand.
Perhaps grief at Susannah's loss had been dominant until Ephraim's accusation had fanned her anger.