The place was bare and miserable and the air heavy with the smell of
dirt and stale tobacco. Charity's heart sank. Old derided tales of
the Mountain people came back to her, and the woman's stare was so
disconcerting, and the face of the sleeping man so sodden and bestial,
that her disgust was tinged with a vague dread. She was not afraid for
herself; she knew the Hyatts would not be likely to trouble her; but she
was not sure how they would treat a "city fellow."

Lucius Harney would certainly have laughed at her fears. He glanced
about the room, uttered a general "How are you?" to which no one
responded, and then asked the younger woman if they might take shelter
till the storm was over.

She turned her eyes away from him and looked at Charity.

"You're the girl from Royall's, ain't you?"

The colour rose in Charity's face. "I'm Charity Royall," she said, as
if asserting her right to the name in the very place where it might have
been most open to question.

The woman did not seem to notice. "You kin stay," she merely said;
then she turned away and stooped over a dish in which she was stirring
something.

Harney and Charity sat down on a bench made of a board resting on two
starch boxes. They faced a door hanging on a broken hinge, and through
the crack they saw the eyes of the tow-headed boy and of a pale little
girl with a scar across her cheek. Charity smiled, and signed to the