She brought back in sequenced retrospection the happy years of travel--how proud she'd always been of her handsome husband and of his courtly deference to her. She had never ceased to be grateful that Heaven had given her this man to love and cherish her. She couldn't tell how or when the change had come, but somehow they weren't happy together any more. He was so moody and quarrelsome lately. She missed her brother, too. Why those two men should get by the ears over the inhabitants of the Silent City she couldn't understand. But her thoughts were soon concentrated upon the work at hand and contemplating the joy she would have in Elsie's pleasure, she began to hum to herself.
Two or three times she peered at Ebenezer through her lashes. How moodily quiet he was! She wished Elsie were awake--the little girl always succeeded in dissipating the frown from her father's brows.
Suddenly, she held up the doll in all its newly-adjusted festive attire.
"There, now, dear, isn't the doll baby pretty?" she smiled.
Ebenezer didn't take his gaze from the burning logs.
"I'm not interested in dolls tonight." His tone was harsh and his manner studiously rude. Then, as though he'd finally determined to say something else, he looked around at her.
"I taught Tess Skinner a lesson today I don't believe she'll forget," he burst forth savagely.
The doll dropped from Helen's hands, its head striking sharply against the arm of her chair.
"What do you mean?" she gasped.
"You needn't get that expression on your face, my lady--"
"Oh, Ebenezer!" interjected Helen, drearily. "What makes you act so? One would think you spent your whole time trying to get even with somebody."
"I got even with my lady Skinner," smiled Waldstricker. "I gave her brat a whipping." The words came slowly, and the man watched their effect.
Helen was not able to sense the full meaning of his statement at first. Mechanically, she rescued the doll and laid it on the table. Beginning to see the picture he'd suggested, she opened her mouth, closed it again and at the next attempt spoke.
"Why, Ebenezer, Tessibel's baby is only a month or so older than Elsie!"
"Well, what of it! He's an impudent little whelp. Takes after his mother, I suppose."
"But you don't really mean you whipped him!" Helen exclaimed, still incredulous.
"That's just what I do. With my riding whip. What do you think of that?"
His words brought to Helen's recollection that other time he'd used his riding whip. Then it had been upon Mother Moll, and the old woman had screamed at him, "It air like ye to hit the awful young and the awful old." She recalled, too, the other mysterious words the witch woman had uttered. "Curls'll bring yer to yer knees--the little man air a settin' on yer chest!" The prophecy addressed to herself, that he'd make her life unhappy and that she'd leave him, she'd never before taken seriously. But the question hammered at her consciousness. Could it be that Moll had a second sight or something of the sort? Ebenezer's trouble about the squatters centered about Andy Bishop and the Skinner girl; the dwarf was certainly a little man and Tessibel had wonderful red curls. Her husband had made her life unhappy and his mood tonight was unusually ugly. She was touched with a superstitious half-conviction that the old woman's words would be fulfilled.