for you to stand there drying your feet, but--but--they were just like
other people, as you told Mr. Finney, you know."

"Did you expect them to have horns and tails?"

"I don't think they are very wicked," said Susannah. She looked down as
she said it, speaking with a certain undefined tenderness of tone
begotten of a new experience.

"Well?"

"That's all."

"How could you know whether they are wicked or not?" he burst out
angrily. "Do you suppose that they would show _you_ the iniquity of
their hearts?"

"Why, Ephraim, you've always stood up for them before!"

He gave a sort of snort. "I never stood up for them by making eyes at my
hands and cooing out my words."

She looked up in entire bewilderment.

"It doesn't matter what I mean," he added. "What did they say? What did
they do? Tell me. If I'd known these fellows had come back, do you
suppose I'd have let you go?"

"You are so strange," she said. "They did nothing but just bring me home
and hold the umbrella, and Joseph Smith said he knew he'd been a bad man