Kenniston fancied that from some real or affected rustic shyness because of his presence she had sought this retirement, for she flushed deeply at his glance, and bent her head over a piece of rough mending which she seemed to be perpetrating on a jeans coat with a gigantic needle and a very coarse thread. She could hardly have seen very well to set the stitches, and as her side was toward him he could ill distinguish her face for the shadow and her industrious attitude and her falling hair. Julia Tems looked up at her with a laughing glance, half raillery, half sneer. But the brother took up the question with an air of contention; he wanted rain for his corn crop, and he believed the clouds must surely hold it in trust for him. "The fog war a-getherin' along the mountings this evenin', an' I seen 'bout a hour ago a thunder-head a-loafin' round over Piomingo," he averred with a certain bitterness, as if to protest against the arguing away of these prospects. "Waal," the singing voice, curiously vibrant, broke forth once more, "we air likely ter git a good full rain, ez would holp up the crap 'fore long, but we ain't goin' ter hev no steady set o' bad weather now. Signs don't favor it." The old man again took his pipe from his mouth. "Ye-es. An' a body mought b'lieve from yer talk that ef Satan war ter cotch us by the right leg this week, he'd be mighty likely ter turn us loose by the lef leg nex' week." He laughed sarcastically. "All of us air s'prisin' apt ter be suited, no matter how things turn out." He replaced his pipe, adding, with the stem between his teeth, "That's Ad'licia's notion," and then smoked imperturbably. The little optimist looked at him with an indignant, affronted gaze for a moment, then bent once more to her sewing. She had forgotten Kenniston, and her face was fully revealed in the moment that she had turned it on her critic,--an oval face, with a little round unassertive chin, a thin, delicate, aquiline nose, a small mouth with full lips, the indenture in the upper one so deep as to make it truly like a bow, and widely opened gray eyes that resembled nothing so much as moss agates. They were veiled by long, reddish lashes, and the hair that hung curling down about the nape of her neck was of a dull copper hue. Her complexion was exceedingly white, and she had that thin-skinned look which is incompatible with freckles as annuals; in those milk-white spaces about the eyes were sundry tokens of the sunny weather which even the dark days of winter would not obliterate. Her figure was slender, and she did not look strong. She wore a brown homespun dress, and she bit the coarse thread with a double row of small perfect white teeth as she addressed herself to threading her big needle anew. "Studyin' 'bout the weather, an' gittin' onhappy 'bout yer buildin'?" demanded old Tems of his guest. There was a slight twist of the lips, suggestive of covert ridicule on his part, as he asked the question.