Her conversation, Eugene thought, was not unlike Brother Steve’s.
But their affection and loyalty for one another was beautiful. Its unaccustomed faith, its abiding tranquillity, puzzled and disturbed the Gants. They were touched indefinably, a little annoyed, because of it.
The Bartons came to Woodson Street two weeks before the wedding. Within three days after their arrival, Helen and old lady Barton were at odds. It was inevitable. The heat of the girl’s first affection for Barton’s family wore off very quickly: her possessive instinct asserted itself—she would halve no one’s love, she would share with no other a place in the heart. She would own, she would possess completely. She would be generous, but she would be mistress. She would give. It was the law of her nature.
She began immediately, by force of this essential stress, to make out a case against the old woman.
Mrs. Barton, too, felt the extent of her loss. She wanted to be sure that Helen realized the extent of her acquisition of one of the latter-day saints.
Rocking ponderously in the dark on Gant’s veranda, the old woman would say:
“You are get-ting a good boy, Hel-en.” She would wag her powerful head from side to side, pugnaciously emphatic. “Though I do say it myself, you are get-ting one good boy, Hel-en. A bet-ter boy than Hugh does-ent live.”
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Helen, annoyed. “I don’t think it’s such a bad bargain for him either, you know. I think pretty well of myself, too.” And she would laugh, huskily, heartily, trying in laughter to conceal her resentment, but visibly, to every eye but Mrs. Barton’s, angered.
A moment later, on some pretext, she would be back into the house, where, with a face contorted by her rising hysteria, to Luke, Eugene, or any sympathetic audience, she would burst out:
“You heard that, didn’t you? You heard that? You see what I’ve got to put up with, don’t you? Do you see? Do you blame me for not wanting that damned old woman around? Do you? You see
