r the fashion of mountain women, and when she
went up the steps of the porch she was outwardly to the eye one of them
except for the leathern belt about her slenderly full waist, her black
silk stockings and the little "furrin" shoes on her dainty feet. She
smiled inwardly when she saw the same old wave of disappointment sweep
across the faces of them all. It was not necessary to shake hands, but
unthinkingly she did, and the women sat in their chairs as she went from
one to the other and each gave her a limp hand and a grave "howdye,"
though each paid an unconscious tribute to a vague something about her,
by wiping that hand on an apron first. Very quietly and naturally she
took a low chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them, went to
work. Nobody looked at her at first until old Hon broke the silence.

"You haint lost a spec o' yo' good looks, Juny."

June laughed without a flush--she would have reddened to the roots of
her hair two years before.

"I'm feelin' right peart, thank ye," she said, dropping consciously into
the vernacular; but there was a something in her voice that was vaguely
felt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that was in her erect
bearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight into
their own--a strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings and
those shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye in
time covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was
beyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother alone talked at first, and
the others, even Loretta, said never a word.

"Jack Hale must have been in a mighty big hurry," quavered the old
step-mother. "June ain't goin' to be with us long, I'm afeerd:" and,
without looking up, June knew the wireless significance of the speech
was going around from eye to eye, but calmly she pulled her thread
through a green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmatical shake of
her head:

"I--don't know--I don't know."

Young Dave's mother was encouraged and all her efforts at good-humour
could not quite draw the sting of a spiteful plaint from her voice.

"I reckon she'd never git away, if my boy Dave had the sayin' of it."
There was a subdued titter at this, but Bub had come in from the stable
and had dropped on the edge of the porch. He broke in hotly:

"You jest let June alone, Aunt Tilly, you'll have yo' hands full if you
keep yo' eye on Loretty thar."

Already when somebody was sayi