ouse!" he said at last, pointing with extended arm and whip
(which latter he had no occasion to use) across the open country.

Gabriella followed his gesture with apprehensive eyes and beheld away
off a big comfortable-looking two-story brick dwelling with
white-washed fences around it and all sorts of white-washed houses on
one side or the other--a plain, sweet, country, Kentucky home, God
bless it! The whiteness won Gabriella at once; and with the whiteness
went other things just as good: the assurance everywhere of thrift,
comfort. Not a weed in sight, but September bluegrass, deep flowing, or
fresh-ploughed fields or clean stubble. Every rail in its place on
every fence; every gate well swung. Everything in sight in the way of
live stock seemed to Gabriella either young or just old enough. The
very stumps they passed looked healthy.

Her conjecture had been correct: the slender slip of a woman met her at
the side porch a little diffidently, with a modest smile; then kissed
her on the mouth and invited her in. The supper table was already set
in the middle of the room; and over in one corner was a big white
bed--with a trundle bed (not visible) under it. Gabriella "took off her
things" and laid them on the snowy counterpane; and the housewife told
her she would let the children entertain her for a few minutes while
she saw about supper.

The children accepted the agreement. They swarmed about her as about a
new cake. Two or three of the youngest began to climb over her as they
climbed over the ice-house, to sit on her as they sat on the stiles.
The oldest produced their geographies and arithmetics and showed her
how far they had gone. (They had gone a great deal farther than
Gabriella!) No one paid the least attention to any one else, or stood
in awe of anything or anybody: Fear had never come to that Jungle!

But trouble must enter into the affairs of this world, and it entered
that night into Gabriella.

At supper the farmer, having picked out for her the best piece of the
breast of the fried chicken, inquired in a voice which implied how
cordially superfluous the question was:--

"Miss Gabriella, will you have cream gravy?"

"No, thank you."

The shock to that family! Not take cream gravy! What kind of a teacher
was that, now? Every small hand, old enough to use a knife or fork,
held it suspended. At the foot of the table, the farmer, dropping his
head a little, helped the children, calling their names on