CHAPTER III.
When Cephas Barnard and his wife and daughter turned into the main road and came in sight of the new house, not one of them appeared to even glance at it, yet they all saw at once that there were no workmen about, and they also saw Barnabas himself ploughing with a white horse far back in a field at the left of it.
[Illustration: "They came in sight of the house"] They all kept on silently.

Charlotte paled a little when she caught sight of Barney, but her face was quite steady.

"Hold your dress up a little higher; the grass is terrible wet," her mother whispered once, and that was all that any of them said until they reached home.
Charlotte went at once up-stairs to her own chamber, took off her purple gown, and hung it up in her closet, and got out a common one.
The purple gown was part of her wedding wardrobe, and she had worn it in advance with some misgivings.

"I dunno but you might jest as well wear it a few Sundays," her mother had said; "you're goin' to have your silk dress to come out bride in.

I dunno as there's any sense in your goin' lookin' like a scarecrow all the spring because you're goin' to get married." So Charlotte had put on the new purple dress the day before; now it looked, as it hung in the closet, like an effigy of her happier self.
When Charlotte went down-stairs she found her mother showing much more spirit than usual in an altercation with her father.