in here after something. You'd oughta rapped on that door. Then I'd 'a'
known you was here. I'll go and have my old man hunt him up. He must be
around town somewheres. Like as not he'll meet the six-twenty, expecting
you to be on it."

She smiled reassuringly as she turned to the inner door.

"You take off your hat and jacket, and pretty soon I'll show you up to a
room. I'll have to round up my old man first--and that's liable to take
time." She turned her eyes quizzically to the porky-cheeked portrait. "You
jest let Walt keep you company till I get back. He was real good company
when he was livin'."

She smiled again and went out briskly, came back, and stood with her hand
upon the cracked doorknob.

"I clean forgot your name," she hinted. "Man told me, at dinner time, but
I'm no good on earth at remembering names till after I've seen the person
it belongs to."

"Valeria Peyson--Val, they call me usually, at home." The homesickness of
the girl shone in her misty eyes, haunted her voice. Mrs. Hawley read it,
and spoke more briskly than she would otherwise have done.

"Well, we're plumb strangers, but we ain't going to stay that way, because
every time you come to town you'll have to stop here; there ain't any other
place to stop. And I'm going to start right in calling you Val. We don't
use no ceremony with folk's names, out here. Val's a real nice name, short
and easy to say. Mine's Arline. You can call me by it if you want to. I
don't let everybody--so many wants to cut it down to Leen, and I won't