He was, innocently enough, pleased with her appearance, and saw nothing sinister, nothing extraordinary about her. A rather short, full-bosomed young woman of perhaps twenty, with a dark, freckled face and an expression very pleasant and friendly. She smiled at him as soon as she entered. “Mrs. Defoe will be back in a minute,” she said, as she set down her tray. She was wearing a ruffled little apron tied about her neat waist, and her air was altogether housewifely and homely, as if she had been brought up from infancy in that very house. He couldn’t imagine who she was. He knew that the old lady lived alone, had lived alone since the death of her husband twelve years ago. This agreeable young person was certainly not a servant, and he was sure she didn’t belong in the neighbourhood. If he had seen her, he knew he would have remembered her. She gave him a glass of lemonade and sat down opposite him, amiably prepared to entertain him. “It’s growing warm, isn’t it?” she said, and he recognised in her voice and accent something far superior to the native language of Brownsville Landing. “It’s what we want, for the fruit,” he answered, in his sing-song drawl. “It was a cold Spring here.” “So I’ve heard.... What a _nice_ horse! Is it yours, Mr. Petersen?” He was very much pleased; he said it was, and went on to tell of the virtues and eccentricities of his beloved mare. Minnie said she didn’t ride, but was very fond of driving. Riding suited Mr. Petersen better; it made one feel more independent. “Oh, well, you’re a _man_!” said she. “A girl can’t go riding about alone, very well.” In some way this made him suddenly conscious of her smallness and feminineness and of all the handicaps imposed upon her by God and by man. Mr. Petersen’s views about women were definite. She was neither above nor below, neither hallowed nor accursed, but a quite ordinary human being, like himself, equally responsible, equally privileged. A woman--the right sort--was a friend, simply. And he saw in Minnie a friend, candid and good-tempered.... (Minnie a _friend_!) “I was so _pleased_,” she went on, “to find a horse here. Of course, I don’t really know much about them. I’ve never lived in the country, really. But I _love_ animals. All animals. And I think I have a sort of knack with them----” He was acquainted with Mrs. Defoe’s horse, a ridiculously coy old skeleton that came into the village once a week harnessed to a buggy and driven by a Negro truck farmer who cultivated the old lady’s arid fields on shares. He could not imagine anyone’s having much affection for that caricature. It touched him. He could think of nothing to say, and the young woman had once more to start up a conversation. “I hope I haven’t made your lemonade too sweet!” she began, anxiously, but was interrupted by Mrs. Defoe calling from upstairs. “Minnie! Minnie!”