her face was wet with tears. And Caleb walked away, never once looking
back. Amanda stayed only to wipe her eyes, saying meanwhile to her
sorry self, "Oh, I dunno how I can get along! I dunno!" Then she
hurried back to the house, to find the kettle merrily singing, and Aunt
Melissa standing at the kitchen cupboard, looking critically up and
down the shelves.

"If you've got two sets o' them little gem-pans, you might lend me
one," she remarked; and Amanda agreed, not knowing what she gave.

The supper was eaten and the dishes were washed, Aunt Melissa meantime
keeping a strict watch from the window.

"Is it time for Kelup?" she asked, again and again; and finally she
confronted the guilty Amanda with the challenge, "Do you think Kelup
ain't comin'?"

"I--guess not," quavered Amanda, her cheeks scarlet, and her small,
pathetic hands trembling. She was not more used to _finesse_ than to
heroic action.

"Do you s'pose there's any on 'em sick down to young Nat's?" asked Aunt
Melissa; and Amanda was obliged to take recourse again to her shielding
"I guess not." But at length Uncle Hiram drove up in the comfortable
carry-all; and though his determined spouse detained him more than
three-quarters of an hour, sitting beside him like a portly
Rhadamanthus, and scanning the horizon for the Caleb who never came, he
finally rebelled, shook the reins, and drove off, Aunt Melissa meantime
screaming over her shoulder certain vigorous declarations, which
evidently began with the phrase, "You tell Kelup--"