For the deacon was that night in one
of his severest humors. As Biah Carter afterwards remarked of that night,
"You could feel there was thunder in the air somewhere round. The deacon
had got on about his longest face, and when the deacon's face is about
down to its wust, why, it would stop a robin singin'--there couldn't
nothin' stan' it."
To-night the severely cut lines of his face had even more than usual of
haggard sternness, and the handsome features of James beside him, in
their fixed gravity, presented that singular likeness which often comes
out between father and son in seasons of mental emotion. Diana in vain
sought to draw a laugh from her cousin. In pouring his home-brewed beer
she contrived to spatter him, but he wiped it off without a smile, and
let pass in silence some arrows of raillery that she had directed at his
somber face.
When they rose from table, however, he followed her into the pantry.
"Diana, will you take a walk with me to-night?" he said, in a voice husky
with repressed feeling.
"To-night! Why, I have just promised Bill to go with him over to the
husking at the Jenks's. Why don't you go with us? We're going to have
lots of fun," she added with an innocent air of not perceiving his
gravity.
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