It was a cheerless-looking house, painted a garish yellow, having staring windows, and devoid of a front porch, or slightest attempt at shade to render its uncomely front less unattractive. Hampton could scarcely refrain from forming a mental picture of the woman who would most naturally preside within so unpolished an abode--an angular, hard-featured, vinegar-tempered creature, firm settled in her prejudices and narrowed by her creed. Had the matter been left at that moment to his own decision, this glimpse of the house would have turned them both back, but the girl unhesitatingly pressed forward and turned defiantly in through the gateless opening. He followed in silence along the narrow foot-path bordered by weeds, and stood back while she stepped boldly up on the rude stone slab and rapped sharply against the warped and sagging door. A moment they stood thus waiting with no response from within. Once she glanced suspiciously around at him, only to wheel back instantly and once more apply her knuckles to the wood. Before he had conjured up something worth saying the door was partially opened, and a rounded dumpling of a woman, having rosy cheeks, her hair iron-gray, her blue eyes half smiling in uncertain welcome, looked out upon them questioningly. "I 've come to live here," announced the girl, sullenly. "That is, if I like it." The woman continued to gaze at her, as if tempted to laugh outright; then the pleasant blue eyes hardened as their vision swept beyond toward Hampton. "It is extremely kind of you, I 'm sure," she said at last. "Why is it I am to be thus honored?" The girl backed partially off the doorstep, her hair flapping in the wind, her cheeks flushed. "Oh, you need n't put on so much style about it," she blurted out. "You 're Mrs. Herndon, ain't you? Well, then, this is the place where I was sent; but I reckon you ain't no more particular about it than I am. There's others." "Who sent you to me?" and Mrs. Herndon came forth into the sunshine. "The preacher." "Oh, Mr. Wynkoop; then you must be the homeless girl whom Lieutenant Brant brought in the other day. Why did you not say so at first? You may come in, my child." There was a sympathetic tenderness apparent now in the tones of her voice, which the girl was swift to perceive and respond to, yet she held back, her independence unshaken. With the quick intuition of a woman, Mrs. Herndon bent down, placing one hand on the defiant shoulder. "I did not understand, at first, my dear," she said, soothingly, "or I should never have spoken as I did. Some very strange callers come here. But you are truly welcome. I had a daughter once; she must have been nearly your age when God took her. Won't you come in?"