“There, now, don't you worry none. Man's all right; I seen him at dinner time. He was--” She stopped short, looked keenly at the delicate face, and at the yellow-brown eyes which gazed back at her, innocent of evil, trusting, wistful. “He spoke about your coming, and said he'd want the use of the parlor this evening, for the wedding. I had an idea you was coming on the six-twenty train. Maybe he thought so, too. I never heard you come in--I was busy frying doughnuts in the kitchen--and I just happened to come in here after something. You'd oughta rapped on that door. Then I'd 'a' known you was here. I'll go and have my old man hunt him up. He must be around town somewheres. Like as not he'll meet the six-twenty, expecting you to be on it.” She smiled reassuringly as she turned to the inner door. “You take off your hat and jacket, and pretty soon I'll show you up to a room. I'll have to round up my old man first--and that's liable to take time.” She turned her eyes quizzically to the porky-cheeked portrait. “You jest let Walt keep you company till I get back. He was real good company when he was livin'.” She smiled again and went out briskly, came back, and stood with her hand upon the cracked doorknob. “I clean forgot your name,” she hinted. “Man told me, at dinner time, but I'm no good on earth at remembering names till after I've seen the person it belongs to.” “Valeria Peyson--Val, they call me usually, at home.” The homesickness of the girl shone in her misty eyes, haunted her voice. Mrs. Hawley read it, and spoke more briskly than she would otherwise have done. “Well, we're plumb strangers, but we ain't going to stay that way, because every time you come to town you'll have to stop here; there ain't any other place to stop. And I'm going to start right in calling you Val. We don't use no ceremony with folk's names, out here. Val's a real nice name, short and easy to say. Mine's Arline. You can call me by it if you want to. I don't let everybody--so many wants to cut it down to Leen, and I won't stand for that; I'm _lean_ enough, without havin' it throwed up to me. We might jest as well start in the way we're likely to keep it up, and you won't feel so much like a stranger. “I'm awful glad you're going to settle here--there ain't so awful many women in the country; we have to rake and scrape to git enough for three sets when we have a dance--and more likely we can't make out more 'n two. D' you dance? Somebody said they seen a fiddle box down to the depot, with a couple of big trunks; d' you play the fiddle?” “A little,” Valeria smiled faintly.