Her sisters and nieces must come to tea; and all the food, which was
the village fashion and as absolute in its way as court etiquette,
must be provided.
"They'll suspect if I don't," said Sylvia Crane.
She rolled away the stone from the door and entered her solitary
house. She lighted her candle and prepared for bed. She did not get
any supper. She said to herself with a sudden fierceness, which came
over her at times--a mild impulse of rebellion which indicated
perhaps some strain from far-off, untempered ancestors, which had
survived New England generations--that she did not care if she never
ate supper again.
"They're all comin' troopin' in here to-morrow, an' it's goin' to
take about all the little I've got left to get victuals for 'em, an'
I've got to go without to-night if I starve!" she cried out quite
loud and defiantly, as if her hard providence lurked within hearing
in some dark recess of the room.
She raked ashes over the coals in the fireplace. "I'll go to bed an'
save the fire, too," she said; "it'll take about all the wood I've
got left to-morrow. I've got to heat the oven. Might as well go to
bed, an' lay there forever, anyway. If I stayed up till doomsday
nobody'd come."
Sylvia set the shovel back with a vicious clatter; then she struck
out--like a wilful child who hurts itself because of its rage and
impotent helplessness to hurt aught else--her thin, red hand against
the bricks of the chimney.
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