"You are goin' out, then, spite o' what I said?" the Deacon
inquired sternly.
"Did you really think, father, that I would sleep under your roof
after you had turned my sister out into the snow to lodge with
whoever might take her in--my seventeen year-old-sister that your
wife left to my care; my little sister, the very light of my
life?"
Waitstill's voice trembled a trifle, but other-wise she was quite
calm and free from heroics of any sort.
The Deacon looked up in surprise. "I guess you're kind o'
hystericky," he said. "Set down--set down an' talk things over. I
ain't got nothin' ag'in' you, an' I mean to treat you right. Set
down!"
The old man was decidedly nervous, and intended to keep his
temper until there was a safer chance to let it fly.
Waitstill sat down. "There's nothing to talk over," she said. "I
have done all that I promised my stepmother the night she died,
and now I am going. If there's a duty owed between daughter and
father, it ought to work both ways. I consider that I have done
my share, and now I intend to seek happiness for myself. I have
never had any, and I am starving for it."
"An' you'd leave me to git on the best I can, after what I've
done for you?" burst out the Deacon, still trying to hold down
his growing passion.
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