could hope for better than an imperturbable neutrality. So they
would not pretend to be glad. Hagar was right--perhaps the girl
was no good. They would wait until they could pass judgment upon
this girl who had come to live in the wikiup of the Harts. Then
Lucy, she who longed always for children and had been denied by
fate, stirred slightly, her nostrils aquiver.

"Mebbyso bueno yo' girl,', she yielded, speaking softly.
"Mebbyso see yo' girl."

Phoebe's face cleared, and she called, in mellow crescendo: "Oh,
Va-ad-NIEE?" Immediately the singing stopped.

"Coming, Aunt Phoebe," answered the voice.

The squaws wrapped themselves afresh in their blankets, passed
brown palms smoothingly down their hair from the part in the
middle, settled their braids upon their bosoms with true feminine
instinct, and waited. They heard her feet crunching softly in
the gravel that bordered the pond, but not a head turned that
way; for all the sign of life they gave, the three might have
been mere effigies of women. They heard a faint scream when she
caught sight of them sitting there, and their faces settled into
more stolid indifference, adding a hint of antagonism even to the
soft eyes of Lucy, the tender, childless one.

"Vadnie, here are some new neighbors I want you to get acquainted
with." Phoebe's eyes besought the girl to be calm. "They're all
old friends of mine. Come here and let me introduce you--and
don't look so horrified, honey!"