sonally. It might have happened to some third
person. He did not even recall distinctly the threads of the logic which
had lifted him to such a Pisgah, and showed him the whole South as a new
and promised land. However, he knew that he could start his train of
thought again, and again ascend the mountain.

Floating through the fog into his open window came the noises of the
village as it set about living another day, precisely as it had lived
innumerable days in the past. The blast of the six-o'clock whistle from
the planing-mill made the loose sashes of his windows rattle. Came a
lowing of cows and a clucking of hens, a woman's calling. The voices of
men in conversation came so distinctly through the pall that it seemed a
number of persons must be moving about their morning work, talking and
shouting, right in the Renfrew yard.

But the thing that impressed Peter most was the solidity and stability
of this Southern village that he could hear moving around him, and its
certainty to go on in the future precisely as it had gone on in the
past. It was a tremendous force. The very old manor about him seemed
huge and intrenched in long traditions, while he, Peter Siner, was just
a brown man, naked behind a screen and rather cold from the fog and damp
of the morning.

He listened to old Rose clashing the kitchen utensils. As he drew on his
damp underwear, he wondered what he could say to old Rose that would
persuade her into a little kindliness and tolerance for the white
people. As he listened he felt hopeless; he could never explain to the
old creature that her own happiness depended upon the charity she
extended to others. She could never understand it. She would live and
die precisely the same bitter old beldam that she was, and nothing could
ever assuage her.

While Peter was thinking of the old creature, she came shuffling along
the back piazza with his breakfast. She let herself in by lifting one
knee to a horizontal, balancing the tray on it, then opening the door
with her freed hand.

When the shutter swung open, it displayed the crone standing on one
foot, wearing a man's grimy sock, which had fallen down over a broken,
run-down shoe.

In Peter's mood the thought of this wretched old woman putting on such
garments morning after morning was unspeakably pathetic. He thought of
his own mother, who had lived and died only a shade or two removed from
the old crone's condition.

Rose put down her foot, and entere