Alethea had risen and turned half round, leaning against the great clumsy frame of the loom. Her posture displayed her fine height; her supple figure was slight, as became her age, but with a suggestion of latent strength in every curve. There was something strangely inconsistent in the searching, serious expression of her grave brown eyes and the lavish endowment of her beauty, which seemed as a thing apart from her. Perhaps only Ben Doaks noted, or rather felt in a vague, unconscious way, the fascination of its detail: the lustre of her dense yellow hair showing against the brown wall, where a string of red peppers hung, heightening the effect; the glimpse of her white throat under the saffron kerchief; the lithe grace of her figure, about which her sober-hued dress fell in straight folds. To the home-folks she gave other subjects to contemplate. “Naw,” she drawled, in her soft, low voice, whose intonation only suggested sarcasm, “we didn’t plant much o’ nuthin’ las’ year,—hed no seed sca’cely, an’ nuthin’ ter trade fur ’em. The plenties’ o’ ennythin’ roun’ hyar-abouts war bresh whiskey, an’ ez Buck don’t drink it he ain’t no fatter ’n he be.” “Waal,” said Doaks, feeling all the discomforts incident to witnessing a family row, incompetent to participate by reason of non-membership, “I ’lowed the mountings hed in an’ about done with moonshinin’, cornsiderin’ the way the raiders kep’ up with the distillers. It’s agin the law, ye know.” “I ain’t a-keerin’ fur the law,” said Alethea loftily. “The law air jes’ the men’s foolishness, an’ they air a-changin’ of it forever till ’tain’t got no constancy. Ef I war minded ter break it I’d feel no hendrance in the sperit.” Her eyes met his. He looked vaguely away. Certainly there was no reasoning on this basis. “’Tain’t right,” she said suddenly. “Jacob sleeps an’ drinks his time away, an’ don’t do his sheer o’ the work. I done _all_ the ploughin’ this year,—me an’ Buck,—an’ I ain’t one o’ the kind ez puts up with sech. I ain’t a Injun woman, like them at Quallatown. Pete Rood,—he hev been over thar,—he ’lows the wimmen do _all_ the crappin’ while the men go huntin’. I’ll kerry my e-end o’ the log, but when the t’other e-end draps ’pears ter me I oughter drap mine.” “What ye goin’ ter do, Lethe?” said the old woman. “Goin’ ter take ter idlin’ an’ drinkin’ bresh whiskey, too?” She laughed, but she sneered as well. Alethea, all unmoved by her ridicule, drawled calmly on: “I dunno nuthin’ ’bout bresh whiskey, an’ I ain’t idled none, ez the rest o’ you-uns kin see; but ef Jacob don’t do his stent nex’ year, thar’ll be less corn hyar than this.” It was hard for Doaks to refrain from telling her that there was a home ready for her, and one to share it who would work for both. Only futility restrained him. He flushed to the roots of his light brown hair, and as a resource he drew out a clasp-knife and absently whittled a chip as he listened.