n her thoughts) to run away with her
to town, it could hardly be done too quickly. So immediately after her
breakfast she put on coat and hat and went "over to Tenney's," as the
country folk would put it. This was a day brightly blue, with mounting
warmth, the road a smoothness of packed snow. When she reached the
house, Tenney was just driving up to the side door in the sleigh, and
she rejoiced. It made her errand easier. He was going to town, and she
could see the woman alone. But immediately Tira, carrying the baby, a
little white lump in coat and hood, came out and stepped into the
sleigh. She, too, was going. Tenney waited while she settled herself and
tucked the robe about her. He was not solicitous, Nan saw, but the
typical country husband, soberly according her time to get herself and
the child "well fixed." Nan, waiting, her eyes on them, still halted
until they drove out, and nodded her good morning. Tenney drew up. His
sharp eyes signaled her.

"I've got it in mind," he announced, "to have a prayer-meetin', come
Wednesday. I'm goin' to put up a notice in the post-office."

He turned a reminding look on Tira who responded by what seemed to Nan
an unwilling confirmation:

"You're invited to come."

"You're all invited," said Tenney harshly, as if Tira had lagged in
urgency. "All on ye."

"Thank you," said Nan, with a cheerful decisiveness. "I'll come."

Tenney slapped the reins and they went on, to a jingling of bells thinly
melodious in the clear air, and Nan turned back to her house. How
beautiful she was, the strange woman, she thought, with a renewal of her
wonder over Tira, the calm majesty of her, the way she sat erect in the
old red sleigh as if she were queen of a triumphal progress, the sad
inscrutability of her wonderful eyes, the mouth with its evasive curves;
how would an artist indicate them delicately enough so that you kept
them in your memory as she saw herself doing, and were yet not able to
say whether it was the indented corner or the full bow? She found
herself remembering poetic lines about Grecian Helen, and then recalling
herself to New England and the unlikelihood of such bewitchingness.
There couldn't be a woman so compact of mystery and unconsidered
aloofness, and yet beauty, beauty to the bone.

When the Tenneys drove by Raven's, each with face set forward, not
looking at the house, Raven was in the kitchen consulting Charlotte
about supplies. Jerry, also, was going to town, f