Ella had stood watching with eyes puckered skeptically, and round face set in lines of no compromise. But now, without warning, she flung both her stout arms round the refugee. “Wild Injuns!” she fumed. “What was I tellin’ ye? You’re all alike, you men-fo’ks. There, there, poor thing!” Awkward and motherly, she stroked the girl’s bright hair, scolding and consoling in a breath. “There, there, nubbin, you’re all of a quiver--all on a string. Worse ’n old Neptune, they are!--Miles, I left my knittin’ somewheres by that tree. Jest you hyper out an’ find it.” Needles and all, it lay on the table before them, but Miles obeyed. He paced back and forth under the stars, watching the lighted window. He should be sorry for her, ran his thought. But his one clear emotion was nothing of the kind; buoyantly, against reason and through suspense, rioted the conviction that all was well. When the voices ceased within, he entered, and found the two women sitting like friends agreed. They smiled at him rather uncertainly. “Well,” exclaimed the elder, whipping a handkerchief out of sight. “That’s settled, anyhow. She’ll stay here with us till she finds somewheres better.” “But I forgot,” the girl objected. “All my things are there.” “I’ll get them,” offered Miles. “You’d look well,” the servant retorted grimly. “I’ll go my own self. Incidental, I’ll see that pair o’ shoats. And they won’t ask me to set and come again, either!” “But,” said the girl, “they’ll come after me.” “Let ’em!” cried Ella, with sudden extravagance. “I’ll set ’em down so hard they--they can comb their hair with their spinal columes! Let ’em come.” For that night no one accepted the challenge; and next morning Ella promptly descended on Alward’s, to return in ferocious triumph, bearing a little armful of spoils. “There’s your clothes!” she cried with the voice of Deborah. “A haley old mess that house is already, without ye! What did I say to ’em? Never you mind. They know more ’n they did. The fear o’ the Lord’s the beginnin’ o’ wisdom. I said what was vouched to me that hour. I bit a piece out o’ the roof!” At all events she had determined the situation, and from now forward there were three in the house. It seemed incredible. Miles passed the first days in a dream, a revolution of thoughts and habits. To have this shining guest come and go upon the stairs, or sit at table like a mortal, or read beside the window on rainy afternoons, or move at night overhead in Tony’s chamber, not only threw all indoor routine into the bright confusion of drama, but changed the very air upon the hills, the light on the waters. The valley was visited, like the plains of Mamre.