Chapter 3

Breakers

Duck! Dive! Here comes another one! Wait till the crest-ruffles show! Beyond is smooth water in beauty and wonder-- Shut your mouth! Hold your breath! Dip your head under! Dive through the weight and the wash, and the thunder-- Look out for the undertow!

If Diantha imagined that her arithmetical victory over a too-sordid presentation of the parental claim was a final one, she soon found herself mistaken.

It is easy to say--putting an epic in an epigram--"She seen her duty and she done it!" but the space and time covered are generally as far beyond our plans as the estimates of an amateur mountain climber exceed his achievements.

Her determination was not concealed by her outraged family. Possibly they thought that if the matter was well aired, and generally discussed, the daring offender might reconsider. Well-aired it certainly was, and widely discussed by the parents of the little town before young people who sat in dumbness, or made faint defense. It was also discussed by the young people, but not before their parents.

She had told Ross, first of all, meaning to have a quiet talk with him to clear the ground before arousing her own family; but he was suddenly away just as she opened the subject, by a man on a wheel--some wretched business about the store of course--and sent word that night that he could not come up again. Couldn't come up the next night either. Two long days--two long evenings without seeing him. Well--if she went away she'd have to get used to that.

But she had so many things to explain, so much to say to make it right with him; she knew well what a blow it was. Now it was all over town--and she had had no chance to defend her position.

The neighbors called. Tall bony Mrs. Delafield who lived nearest to them and had known Diantha for some years, felt it her duty to make a special appeal--or attack rather; and brought with her stout Mrs. Schlosster, whose ancestors and traditions were evidently of German extraction.

Diantha retired to her room when she saw these two bearing down upon the house; but her mother called her to make a pitcher of lemonade for them--and having entered there was no escape. They harried her with questions, were increasingly offended by her reticence, and expressed disapproval with a fullness that overmastered the girl's self-control.

"I have as much right to go into business as any other citizen, Mrs. Delafield," she said with repressed intensity. "I am of age and live in a free country. What you say of children no longer applies to me."

"And what is this mysterious business you're goin' into--if one may inquire? Nothin you're ashamed to mention, I hope?" asked Mrs. Delafield.

"If a woman refuses to mention her age is it because she's ashamed of it?" the girl retorted, and Mrs. Delafield flushed darkly.

"Never