Richmond, her father, was drawing off sodden leather boots. He was a
man tall and bowed, stiff but still powerful, with a face masked in an
unkempt tangle of beard.

"H'y, Calvin," he cried; "you're just here for spoon licking! Lucy was
looking for company." Mrs. Braley's comment was below her breath, but
it was plainly no corroboration of her husband's assurance. "You'll
find Hannah in the front of the house," Richmond added. Hannah was
sitting on the stone steps at the side entrance to the parlor. As usual
she had a bright bow in the hair streaming over her back, and her feet
were graceful in slippers with thin black stockings. She kissed him
willingly and studied him with wide-opened hazel-brown eyes. There
wasn't another girl in Greenstream, in Virginia, with Hannah's fetching
appearance, he decided with a glow of adoration. She had a--a sort of
beauty entirely her own; it was not exactly prettiness, but a quality
far more disturbing, something a man could never forget.

"She's done," he told her abruptly.

"What?" Hannah gazed up at him with a dim sweetness in the gathering
dusk.

"What!" he mocked her. "You ought to be ashamed to ask. Why, the house
--our home. We could move in by a week if we were called to. We can get
married any time."

She now looked away from him, her face still and dreaming.

"You don't seem overly anxious," Calvin declared.