"Oh, do they?" said Mrs. Lander.

"Yes'm," answered the girl. "It's a kind of tu'nout in the wintatime; or
I guess that's what made it in the beginning; sometimes folks take one
hand side and sometimes the other, and that keeps them separate; but
they're really the same road, 'm."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Lander, and she pushed her husband to make him say
something, too, but he remained silently intent upon the child's
prettiness, which her blue eyes seemed to illumine with a light of their
own. She had got hold of the door, now, and was using it as if it was a
piece of drapery, to hide not only the tear in her gown, but somehow both
her bare feet. She leaned out beyond the edge of it; and then, at moments
she vanished altogether behind it.

Since Mr. Lander would not speak, and made no sign of starting up his
horse, Mrs. Lander added, "I presume you must be used to havin' people
ask about the road, if it's so puzzlin'."

"O, yes'm," returned the girl, gladly. "Almost every day, in the
summatime."

"You have got a pretty place for a home, he'e," said Mrs. Lander.

"Well, it will be when it's finished up." Without leaning forward
inconveniently Mrs. Lander could see that the partitions of the house
within were lathed, but not plastered, and the girl looked round as if to
realize its condition and added, "It isn't quite finished inside."