"Have y' come back to stay, Willie?" asked the old lady. "Well--it's hard tellin'," answered Will, looking at Agnes. "Well, Agnes, ain't you goin' to git no dinner? I'm 'bout ready f'r dinner. We must git to church early to-day. Elder Wheat is goin' to preach, an' they'll be a crowd. He's goin' to hold communion." "You'll stay to dinner, Will?" asked Agnes. "Yes--if you wish it." "I do wish it." "Thank you; I want to have a good visit with you. I don't know when I'll see you again." As she moved about, getting dinner on the table, Will sat with gloomy face, listening to the "clack" of the old man. The room was a poor little sitting room, with furniture worn and shapeless; hardly a touch of pleasant color, save here and there a little bit of Agnes's handiwork. The lounge, covered with calico, was rickety; the rocking-chair matched it, and the carpet of rags was patched and darned with twine in twenty places. Everywhere was the influence of the Kinneys. The furniture looked like them, in fact. Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction did not escape Mrs. Kinney's hawk-like eyes. "Well, I declare if you hain't put the butter on in one o' my blue chainy saucers? Now you know I don't allow that saucer to be took down by nobody. I don't see what's got into yeh! Anybody'd s'pose you never see any comp'ny b'fore--wouldn't they, pa?" "Sh'd say th' would," said pa, stopping short in a long story about Ed. "Seems if we couldn't keep anything in this house sep'rit from the rest. Ed he uses my curry-comb--" He launched out a long list of grievances, to which Will shut his ears as completely as possible, and was thinking how to stop him, when there came a sudden crash. Agnes had dropped a plate. "Good land o' Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain't the worst I ever see. I'll bet that's my grapevine plate. If it is--Well, of all the mercies, it ain't! But it might 'a' ben. I never see your beat--never! That's the third plate since I came to live here." "Oh, look-a-here, Granny," said Will, desperately, "don't make so much fuss about the plate. What's it worth, anyway? Here's a dollar." Agnes cried quickly: "Oh, don't do that, Will! It ain't her plate. It's my plate, and I can break every plate in the house if I want to," she cried defiantly. "'Course you can," Will agreed. "Wal, she can't! Not while I'm around," put in Daddy. "I've helped to pay f'r them plates, if she does call 'em her'n--" "What the devul is all this row about? Agg, can't you get along without stirring up the old folks every time I'm out o' the house?" The speaker was Ed, now a tall and slouchily dressed man of thirty-two or three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, cleanly-cut style, but he wore a surly look as he lounged in with insolent swagger, clothed in greasy overalls and a hickory shirt. "Hello, Will! I heard you'd got home. John told me as I came along."