The sickly moon went out; and there was lightning in the south. That meant the rain was ’way off, hiding in week after next.... Henriette arose very stealthily and crept outdoors to sit on the gallery, where it was cooler. Maybe right now old Toni was dying.... Once while she was sitting there her grandson came and poked his head out the door. “You better come to bed, gran’mammy. You’ll catch cold out there in your nightclothes.” But she shook her head and mumbled, “Let me be.” She began to sing, very low, “_He will die, my beloved, my friend, when the good round fruit is ripe; when the time of courting is at an end; when the fields are bare, and the sky is black with the low, long cry of the heron...._” * * * * * Two weeks later old Toni passed away. And Toni’s son came to bid Henriette to the funeral: “Papa, he told us to get you. The funeral’s to-morrow at ten.” Henriette, who had moped long ago whenever Toni went off to town, could not shed a tear now he was dead. She was so excited she could scarcely speak; she could scarcely put on her clothes. “Come help me fasten my josie!” she called to her children.... So he had wanted _her_, after all, poor old Toni. She had her grandson help her down in the ditch. “Granny!” her grandchildren cried, shocked. “It rained cats and dogs last night. For shame, a old lady like you, walking down in the ditches.” But they couldn’t do anything with her. She couldn’t rest, she said, until she had seen Josephine. “I must go tell Josie,” she said. “Poor old Josie----” When Henriette neared Josephine’s house she began to cackle, her voice like a reed. But Josephine, sitting in her chair, cut her short. “I done heard a’ready. You needn’t bother to tell me.... Well, me, I’m glad for you, Etta.” Old Josephine sat heavily in her chair, sagging over. How fat and sloppy she looked! And Henriette wondered what memories passed behind her lidless old eyes.... Presently Josephine got up and went and made some coffee. “One hundred for you,” she muttered, “and ninety-eight for me. Well....” To-day old Josephine laced the coffee with anisette, peering at Henriette disapprovingly. “You’ll need your strength,” she said gruffly, deep in her throat. “Getting your feet all wet that-a-way. You ought to be ‘shame’, at your age.” But Henriette smiled. She knew Josephine was trying to dull her own disappointment; she knew that Josephine was low in her mind. Henriette drank of the hot, fragrant coffee. On either side of Josephine’s steps the bunched-up rosettes of the altheas were very pink in the sunshine; and the red yucca shook out its pretty, globular, rain-filled bells.... Henriette didn’t stay very long. “I got lots to do. I got to be up bright and early,” she said.