stranger feel as if he had long been expected and desired. It was not
unfamiliar to the old woman who now entered it. Through the windows she
had often held silent and unsuspected vigil. It was her way to know the
trails over which she might be called to travel and since that day,
three years before, when Sister Angela had met her on the road and made
her startling proposition, Becky had subconsciously known that, in due
time, she would be compelled to accept what then she had so angrily
refused.

On that first encounter Sister Angela had said:

"They tell me that you have a little granddaughter--a very pretty
child."

"Yo' mean Zalie?" Becky was on her guard.

"I did not know her name. How old is she?"

"Nigh onter fifteen." The strange eyes were holding Sister Angela's calm
gaze--the old woman was awaiting the time to spring.

"It is wrong to keep a young girl on that lonely peak away from
everyone, as I am told that you do. Won't you let her come to Ridge
House? We will teach her--fit her for some useful work."

Sister Angela at that time did not know her neighbours as well as she
later learned to know them. Becky came nearer, and her thin lips curled
back from her toothless jaws.

"You-all keep yo' hands off Zalie an' me! I kin larn my gal all she