start at nine. The sun rose without a cloud, and earlier than usual she
was in the kitchen, making cheese sandwiches, decanting buttermilk into
a bottle, wrapping up slices of apple pie, and accusing Verena of having
given away a basket she needed, which had always hung on a hook in the
passage. When she came out into the porch, in her pink calico, which had
run a little in the washing, but was still bright enough to set off
her dark tints, she had such a triumphant sense of being a part of the
sunlight and the morning that the last trace of her misery vanished.
What did it matter where she came from, or whose child she was, when
love was dancing in her veins, and down the road she saw young Harney
coming toward her?

Mr. Royall was in the porch too. He had said nothing at breakfast, but
when she came out in her pink dress, the basket in her hand, he looked
at her with surprise. "Where you going to?" he asked.

"Why--Mr. Harney's starting earlier than usual today," she answered.

"Mr. Harney, Mr. Harney? Ain't Mr. Harney learned how to drive a horse
yet?"

She made no answer, and he sat tilted back in his chair, drumming on the
rail of the porch. It was the first time he had ever spoken of the young
man in that tone, and Charity felt a faint chill of apprehension. After
a moment he stood up and walked away toward the bit of ground behind the
house, where the hired man was hoeing.

The air was cool and clear, with the autumnal sparkle that a north wind
brings to the hills in early summer, and the night had been so still
that the dew hung on everything, not as a lingering moisture, but in