As she stepped on the porch, the door opened and John Abner came out, accompanied by Amos Wigfall and one of the tenant farmers, Samuel Larch, who lived on the far side of Pedlar's Mill. John Abner looked morose, but this had become his habitual expression since he had been crossed in love, and she was less disturbed by it than she was by the anxious suavity on the face of the sheriff. "I was admirin' yo' improvements," Mr. Wigfall remarked. "Thar's been a heap of changes since the old days when yo' Pa an' Ma lived here." She met his wandering glance and held it firmly. "I saw Mr. Kettledrum and he gave me your message." The sheriff's flabby face stiffened. "My message, ma'am?" "About Doctor Greylock. I cannot have him at Five Oaks. He has no claim on me." Hesitating an instant, she repeated slowly, weighing each separate syllable, "He has no claim on me, but I will pay you whatever you need to keep him out of the poorhouse." Mr. Wigfall uttered an obsequious noise which might have been either a bray or a cough. "I don't reckon thar's a mo' charitable-minded lady in the county, ma'am. It ain't often that you refuse to help an' when you do, you're likely to have a good reason." "Well, I'm ready to help Doctor Greylock," Dorinda rejoined impatiently, "but there's no sense in the notion that I owe him something because he ruined Five Oaks and I saved it." "Naw'm, thar cert'n'y ain't no sense in that," Mr. Wigfall conceded with suspicious alacrity. "He thinks we might let him live in one of the unused wings," John Abner explained. "Of course that will mean we'll have to provide for him too, and as you say he hasn't really the shadow of a claim on us. Poor devil!" "The idea has got about that he's dangerous from drink," said Mr. Wigfall, "and thar wouldn't nobody take him in, pay or no pay. The choice was between the county gaol an' the poorhouse, an' considerin' everything the poorhouse seemed mo' hospitable. Doctor Stout can look after him thar, and a bunch of female paupers can take turns at the nursing." "If he's still out of his head, you can hardly expect Martin Flower to want him at Five Oaks," John Abner suggested. "Oh, he's come to himself now," Samuel Larch rejoined before the sheriff could reply. "I was the first to git to him after Ike Pryde brought word, an' when I first clapped eyes on him he was clean out of his senses. But even then he was as weak as a baby an' he couldn't have lifted a finger against you. Soon as he had a few swallows of soup and a little brandy, he began to pick up, an' by the time he'd been fed regular he could talk like himself again. Doctor Stout thinks he'll hang on a few months longer if he gets plenty of milk an' fresh eggs." "Well, I imagine he isn't likely to get them in the poorhouse," John Abner observed, with his sarcastic smile.