I didn't go to be so sharp. Only I don't know what's right," she went
on unhappily.

"It isn't what's right," he corrected her, "but what you want. I wish
Phebe had stayed away a little longer."

"There you go again at Phebe!" she protested.

He replied grimly; "Not half what I feel."

In a dangerously calm voice she inquired, "What's the rest then?"

"She's a trouble-maker," he asserted in a shaking tone over which he
seemed to have no command; "she came back to Greenstream and for no
reason but her own slinked into our happiness. Your whole family--even
Hosmer, pretending to be so wise--are blind as bats. You can't even see
that Phebe's hair is as dyed as her stories. She says she is on the
stage, but it's a pretty stage! I've been to Stanwick and seen those
Parisian Dainties and burlesque shows. They're nothing but a lot of
half-naked women cavorting and singing fast songs. And the show only
begins--with most of them--when the curtain drops. If I even try to
think of you in that I get sick."

"Go on," Hannah stammered, scarcely above her breath.

"It's bad," Calvin Stammark went on. "The women are bad; and a bad
woman is something awful. I know about that too. I've been to the city
as well as Phebe. Oh, Hannah," he cried, "can't you see, can't you!"
With a violent effort he regained the greater part of his composure.
"But it won't touch you," he added; "we're going to be married right