a vale o' sorrow, Mrs. Wade," said the sympathizer, "but it has its ups
and downs, and I recken ye'll be feelin' soon pretty much as I did about
Abner when HE was took. It was mighty soothin' and comfortin' to feel
that whatever might happen now, I always knew just whar Abner was
passin' his nights." Poor slim Mrs. Wade had no disquieting sense of
humor to interfere with her reception of this large truth, and she
accepted it with a burst of reminiscent tears.

A long volleying shower had just passed down the level landscape, and
was followed by a rolling mist from the warm saturated soil like the
smoke of the discharge. Through it she could see a faint lightening
of the hidden sun, again darkening through a sudden onset of rain, and
changing as with her conflicting doubts and resolutions. Thus gazing,
she was vaguely conscious of an addition to the landscape in the shape
of a man who was passing down the road with a pack on his back like
the tramping "prospectors" she had often seen at Heavy Tree Hill. That
memory apparently settled her vacillating mind; she determined she
would NOT go to the dance. But as she was turning away from the window
a second figure, a horseman, appeared in another direction by a
cross-road, a shorter cut through her domain. This she had no difficulty
in recognizing as one of the strangers who were getting up the dance.
She had noticed him at church on the previous Sunday. As he passed the
house he appeared to be gazing at it so earnestly that she drew back
from the window lest she should be seen. And then, for no reason
whatever, she changed her mind once more, and resolved to go to the
dance. Gravely announcing this fact to the wife of her superintendent
who kept house with her in her loneliness, she thought nothing more
about it. She should go in her mourning, with perhaps the addition of a
white collar and frill.