re Linda left 'em--an' yet they just wear
things' an' invite folks in an' see Europe an' keep up their French an'
serve God, an' never get any of it rill lit up. But Linda, she _knew_.
An' she use' to be lonesome. I know she did--I know she did.

"I use' to look at her an' wish an' wish I wa'n't who I am, so's I could
a' let her know I knew too. I use' to go to mend her lace an' sell orris
root to her--an' Madame Proudfit an' Clementina would be there, buyin'
an' livin' on the outside, judicious an' refined an' rill right about
everything; but when Linda come in, she sort o' reached somewheres,
deep, or up, or out, or like that, an' got somethin' that meant it all
instead o' gnawin' its way through words. It was like other folks was
the recipe an' Linda was the rill dish. They was the way to be, but she
was the one that was.

"Well, then one year, when she come home from off to school, this young
clerk followed her. I only see 'em together once--he only stayed a day
an' had his terrible time with Jason Proudfit an' everybody knew it--but
even with seein' 'em that once, I knew about him. I don't care who he
was or what he was worth--he was lit up, too. I donno why he was a clerk
nor anything of him--excep' that the lit kind ain't always the
money-makers--but he could talk to her her way. An' when I see the four
of 'em drive up in front of the post-office the day he come, Mis'
Proudfit an' Clementina talkin' all soft an' interested an' regular
about the foreign postage stamps they was buyin', an' Linda an' him
sittin' there with foreign lands fair livin' in their eyes--I knew how
it would be. An' so it was. They went off, Linda with only the clothes
she was wearin' an' none of her stone rings or like that with her. An'
see what it all done--see what it done. Jason Proudfit, he wouldn't
forgive 'em nor wouldn't hear a word from 'em, though they say Mis'
Linda wrote, at first, an' more than once. An' then when he died two
years or so afterwards, an' Mis' Proudfit tried everywhere--they wa'n't
no trace. An' no wonder, with a differ'nt name so's nobody should find
out how poor they was--an' death--an' like enough prison...."

Calliope stood up, and in the pause Peleg's axe went rhythmically on.

"I'm goin' to be sure," she said. "I hate to--but o' course I've got to
be rill certain, in words."

She went out to the shed, taking with her the photograph, and closed the
door. Peleg's axe ceased. And when she came back, she sa