Before the immediate ache of
his longing for the girl, all other considerations evaporated to thin
air. He would rather be unhappy with her, he thought passionately, than
give her up!
"Abel, if you don't stop mopin' out thar an' come along in, I'll clear
off the dishes!" called his mother again in her rasping voice
which sounded as if she were choking in a perpetual spasm of moral
indignation.
Jerking his shoulders slightly in an unspoken protest, Abel turned
and entered the kitchen, where Sarah Revercomb--tall, spare and
commanding--was preparing two bowls of mush for the aged people, who
could eat only soft food and complained bitterly while eating that. She
was a woman of some sixty years, with a stern handsome face under harsh
bands of yellowish gray hair, and a mouth that sank in at one corner
where her upper teeth had been drawn. Her figure was erect and flat as a
lath, and this flatness was accentuated by the extreme scantiness of
her drab calico dress. In her youth she had been beautiful in a hard,
obvious fashion, and her eyes would have been still fine except for
their bitter and hostile expression.
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