best usually called her aunt, though real nephews and nieces she had
none--"why, Aunt Keziah! What do you mean by comparing the--the person
you just mentioned with a MINISTER!"

"Oh, I wasn't comparin' 'em; I'll leave that for you Come-Outers to do.
Drat this carpet! Seems's if I never saw such long tacks; I do believe
whoever put 'em down drove 'em clean through the center of the earth and
let the Chinymen clinch 'em on t'other side. I haul up a chunk of the
cellar floor with every one. Ah, hum!" with a sigh, "I cal'late
they ain't any more anxious to leave home than I am. But, far's the
minister's concerned, didn't I hear of your Uncle Eben sayin' in prayer
meetin' only a fortni't or so ago that all hands who wa'n't Come-Outers
were own children to Satan? Mr. Ellery must take after his father some.
Surprisin', ain't it, what a family the old critter's got."

The girl laughed again. For one brought up, since her seventh year,
in the strictest of Come-Outer families, she laughed a good deal. Many
Come-Outers considered it wicked to laugh. Yet Grace did it, and hers
was a laugh pleasant to hear and distinctly pleasant to see. It made her
prettier than ever, a fact which, if she was aware of it, should have
been an additional preventive, for to be pretty smacks of vanity.
Perhaps she wasn't aware of it.

"What do you think Uncle Eben would say if he heard that?" she asked.

"Say I took after my father, too, I presume likely. Does your uncle know
you come here to see me so often? And call me 'aunt' and all that?"

"Of course he does. Aunt Keziah, you mustn't think Uncle Eben doesn't
see the good in people simply because they don't believe as he does.