search for a fresh place on the towel.

Before the stranger had finished the father and the elder brother came
out, and, after an ineffectual attempt to salute him, slanted away to the
barn together. The woman, in-doors, was more successful, when he found
her in the dining-room, where the boy showed him. The table was set for
him alone, and it affected him as if the family had been hurried away
from it that he might have it to himself. Everything was very simple: the
iron forks had two prongs; the knives bone handles; the dull glass was
pressed; the heavy plates and cups were white, but so was the cloth, and
all were clean. The woman brought in a good boiled dinner of corned-beef,
potatoes, turnips, and carrots from the kitchen, and a teapot, and said
something about having kept them hot on the stove for him; she brought
him a plate of biscuit fresh from the oven; then she said to the boy,
"You come out and have your dinner with me, Jeff," and left the guest to
make his meal unmolested.

The room was square, with two north windows that looked down the lane he
had climbed to the house. An open door led into the kitchen in an ell,
and a closed door opposite probably gave access to a parlor or a
ground-floor chamber. The windows were darkened down to the lower sash by
green paper shades; the walls were papered in a pattern of brown roses;
over the chimney hung a large picture, a life-size pencil-drawing of two
little girls, one slightly older and slightly larger than the other, each
with round eyes and precise ringlets, and with her hand clasped in the
other's hand.

The guest seemed helpless to take his gaze from it, and he sat fallen
back in his chair at it when the woman came in with a pie.