She had pelted bareheaded down the road and up the road; she had invaded all the neighbors' houses, insisting upon looking through their farthest and most unlikely closets; she had even penetrated to the woods, and joined wild-eyed the groups of peering workers on the shore of the nearest pond.

That she could not endure long, so she had rushed home to her sister, who was either pacing her sitting-room with inarticulate murmurs and wails of distress in the sympathizing ears of several of the neighboring women, or else was staring with haggard eyes of fearful hope from a window.

When she looked from the eastern window she could see her mother-in-law, Mrs.Zelotes Brewster, at an opposite one, sitting immovable, with her Bible in her lap, prayer in her heart, and an eye of grim holding to faith upon the road for the fulfilment of promise.

She felt all her muscles stiffen with anger when she saw the wild eyes of the child's mother at the other window.

"It is all her fault," she said to herself--"all her fault--hers and that bold trollop of a sister of hers." When she saw Eva run down the road, with her black hair rising like a mane to the morning wind, she was an embodiment of an imprecatory psalm.