Tillie’s face went white, and she gazed into her aunt’s resolute countenance with anguish in her own.

“I’d not do it to send you away, Tillie, if I could otherwise help it.  But look how inconwenient it would be havin’ you here to help work, and me not havin’ dare to talk or eat with you.  I’m not obeyin’ to the ‘Rules’ now in talkin’ to you.  But I tole the brethren I’d only speak to you long enough to reason with you some—­and then, if that didn’t make nothin’, I’d send you home.”

The Rules forbade the members to sit at table or hold any unnecessary word of communication with one who had failed to “hold out,” and who had in consequence been “set back.”  Tillie, in her strange indifference to the disgrace of being set back, had not foreseen her inevitable dismissal from her aunt’s employ.  She recognized, now, with despair in her soul, that Aunty Em could not do otherwise than send her home.

“When must I go, Aunty Em?”

“As soon as you make your mind up you ain’t goin’ to repent of your carnal deportment.”

“I can’t repent, Aunty Em!” Tillie’s voice sounded hollow to herself as she spoke.

“Then, Tillie, you’re got to go to-morrow.  I ’ll have to get my niece from East Donegal over.”

It sounded to Tillie like the crack of doom.

The doctor, who was loath to have her leave, who held her interests at heart, and who knew what she would forfeit in losing the help which the teacher was giving her daily in her studies, undertook to add his expostulations to that of the brethern and sisters.

“By gum, Tillie, slick them swanged curls back, if they don’t suit the taste of the meeting!  Are you willin’ to leave go your nice education, where you’re gettin’, fur a couple of damned curls?  I don’t know what’s got INto you to act so blamed stubborn about keepin’ your hair strubbled ’round your face!”

“But the vanity would still be in my heart even if I did brush them back.  And I don’t want to be deceitful.”

“Och, come now,” urged the doctor, “just till you’re got your certificate a’ready to teach!  That wouldn’t be long.  Then, after that, you can be as undeceitful as you want.”

But Tillie could not be brought to view the matter in this light.

She did not sit at table with the family that day, for that would have forced her aunt to stay away from the table.  Mrs. Wackernagel could break bread without reproach with all her unconverted household; but not with a backslider—­for the prohibition was intended as a discipline, imposed in all love, to bring the recalcitrant member back into the fold.

That afternoon, Tillie and the teacher took a walk together in the snow-covered woods.

“It all seems so extraordinary, so inexplicable!” Fairchilds repeated over and over.  Like all the rest of the household, he could not be reconciled to her going.  His regret was, indeed, greater than that of any of the rest, and rather surprised himself.  The pallor of Tillie’s face and the anguish in her eyes he attributed to the church discipline she was suffering.  He never dreamed how wholly and absolutely it was for him.