"It's coming this-er-way!" Sally concluded, and since there was no other human habitation on that particular route but her own she rightfully appropriated the approaching visitor. With a quickness of motion one would not have suspected in such an old body, the woman ran into her cabin and, as a society belle might have rushed for her toilet table, Sally made for a closet in the corner of her living room. From there she brought forth a can of vaseline and daubed some of the contents artistically around her lips; then she tied over her shabby gown a clean and well-preserved apron and smoothed her thin, white hair. "Now," she muttered, composedly taking her knitting and sitting before her hastily replenished hearth-fire; "now, I reckon who-sumever it may be, will think I've had a po'ful feast o' po'k chops, judging from my mouf, an' no quality ain't mo' comfortable than I be?" A smile of content spread over the old face as this vision of respectability enfolded the poor soul. At that moment Marcia Lowe jumped from her horse, tied it to a tree and came rapidly up to the open door. There was an anxious look in her eyes and the corners of her lips drooped a trifle more than they did when she first rode up The Way. The life of The Hollow was claiming her as it had her uncle before her. As she looked in the cabin and saw the composed figure of the mistress a gleam of humour lighted her face and she secretly rebelled at the sensation of lack of ease which often overcame her in the presence of these calm, self-possessed "poor whites." "They are so inhumanly superior!" she thought, and then a kindlier feeling came. "Good afternoon, Miss Taber." Sally looked up with an assumed surprise worthy of her race and tradition. "If it ain't Miss Lowe!" she exclaimed, coming forward cordially. "It sho' am, Miss Lowe! Come in, ma'am and rest yourself." Sally's idioms savoured of darky dialect and her mountain quaintness: "I'll brew a dish o' tea, ma'am." Marcia Lowe refused this attention and stayed Sally by her first words. "Miss Taber, I want you to help me out with a very difficult matter. No one can help me--but you!" People might think what they cared to about this stranger from Trouble Neck--the men still distrusted her--but the women were rapidly being won to her. "I 'low you can count on me, ma'am. I says to myself often, says I--Sally Taber, jes' so long as you can make a friend or do a 'commodation job, you is useful to de community--when yo' can't--why--den!" And with that Sally gave a "pouf!" as if blowing away a feather. Marcia Lowe could not keep her eyes from the shining, greased lips; she was becoming acquainted with mountain peculiarities, but she was perplexed by the neat Sally's daubed face. "It's about--Miss Walden," she said softly, moving her chair closer to Sally. "What's happened 'long o' her?" An anxious look crept into Sally's eyes. "I fear--she is not exactly right."