He saw always Charlotte's beloved features high and pure, almost severe, but softened with youthful bloom, her head with fair hair plaited in a smooth circle, with one long curl behind each ear.

Charlotte would scarcely have said he had noticed, but he knew well she had on a new gown of delaine in a mottled purple pattern, her worked-muslin collar, and her mother's gold beads which she had given her.
Barnabas kept listening anxiously for the crackle of the hearth fire in the best room; he hoped Charlotte had lighted the fire, and they should soon go in there by themselves.

They usually did of a Sunday night, but sometimes Cephas forbade his daughter to light the fire and prohibited any solitary communion between the lovers.
"If Barnabas Thayer can't set here with the rest of us, he can go home," he proclaimed at times, and he had done so to-night.

Charlotte had acquiesced forlornly; there was nothing else for her to do.

Early in her childhood she had learned along with her primer her father's character, and the obligations it imposed upon her.
"You must be a good girl, and mind; it's your father's way," her mother used to tell her.