There was a new bus driver. She gave him the baggage-check, got into the vehicle with hand luggage, flowers, books, periodicals, bon-bons, and fruit. Two commercial men bound for Whitewater Inn were inclined to assiduous politeness. She remained scarcely aware of them. She exchanged salutations with Gumbert, the butcher, who got off at his shop. Otherwise, her fellow travellers were unknown to her and unnoticed. It was a mile to Whitewater Farms. The country looked very lovely. It had rained that morning; grass and foliage were fresh; gullies still ran water; brooks gurgled bank high. The sun, low in a cloudless sky, flung rosy rays across green uplands and here and there a few acres of early stubble. Trees cast long bluish shadows. Cattle were beginning to wander toward the home-lane. It would be near milking time at Whitewater Farms. And now, leaning wide of her window in the clumsy bus, she could see the gilded weather-cock a-glitter on the main barn and swallows circling above brick chimneys. * * * * * At the front gate her trunk was dumped. She paid the driver fifty cents; watched him drive away; then turned and looked at the white house with green shutters, where she had been born. It had been newly painted. The world seemed very still there. She set her suitcase beside her trunk, laid flowers, books, periodicals, fruit, bon-bons on top of it, and walked slowly around the house to the dairy. One of her half-brothers, Cyrus, came out in his white, sterilised milking jacket and trousers, chewing gum. “Well, f’r Gawd’s sake,” he said when the slow recognition had been accomplished. She offered her gloved hand and he took it with a plowman’s clasp and wrung it, shifting from one leg to the other--rural expression of cordiality--legs alone eloquent. Commonplaces said, she made inquiries and learned that everybody was well. “Go right in, Eris! Pa’s getting into his milkin’ duds; Ma she’s cookin’ supper. Go right in, Sis! I guess you know the way----” loud laughter and a large red hand under her arm to pilot and encourage. In the kitchen Mazie turned from the range, then set aside a skillet, wiped both hands on her apron, and took Eris to her ample bosom. When she had kissed her stepdaughter sufficiently: “Pa!” she called, “oh, Pa! Get your pants on and come down here quick!” Elmer was already on his way downstairs, clump, clump, clump. He halted at the kitchen door, buttoning his snowy jacket, gaping stolidly at Fanny’s child. For he knew her instantly--Eris, daughter of Discord. “Hello, Dad,” she said uncertainly. “Hello.... Waal, waal, I’ll be jiggered! Waal, dang it all!... So you took a notion to come back, did you?” “If you’ll let me stay for a little while----” “Why, Eris, how you talk!” exclaimed Mazie. “This is your home; ain’t it, Pa?” Elmer buttoned the last button of his milking jacket: “She can stay if she’s a mind to. She allus does as she’s a mind to,” he replied grimly.