The girl took up the shawl strap and went to the front door. She leaned upon the railing of the stoop and watched the two men standing at the gate. George was talking to his brother in a low tone. Occasionally the brother uttered an ejaculation. She could not hear; their heads were so turned that she could not see their faces. The moon made it almost as bright as day. From the pasture woods came a low, sweet chorus of night life--frogs and insects and occasionally a night bird. From the orchard to the left and the clover fields beyond came a wonderful scented breeze. She heard a step in the hall; her Aunt Sallie appeared--a comfortable, voluble woman, a hard worker and a harder eater and showing it in thin hair and wrinkled face. "Why, Susie Lenox, ain't that you?" she exclaimed. "Yes, Aunt," said Susan. Her aunt kissed her, diffusing that earthy odor which is the basis of the smell of country persons. At various hours of the day this odor would be modified with the smell of cow stables, of chickens, of cooking, according to immediate occupation. But whatever other smell there was, the earthy smell persisted. And it was the smell of the house, too. "Who's at the gate with your Uncle Zeke?" inquired Sallie. "Ain't it George?" "Yes," said Susan. "Why don't he come in?" She raised her voice. "George, ain't you coming in?" "Howdy, Sallie," called George. "You take the girl in. Zeke and I'll be along." "Some business, I reckon," said her aunt to Susan. "Come on. Have you had supper?" "No," said Susan. She was hungry now. The splendid health of the girl that had calmed her torment of soul into a dull ache was clamoring for food--food to enable her body to carry her strong and enduring through whatever might befall. "I'll set something out for you," said Sallie. "Come right in. You might leave your bundle here by the parlor door. We'll put you in the upstairs room." They passed the front stairway, went back through the hall, through the big low-ceilinged living-room with its vast fireplace now covered for the warm season by a screen of flowered wallpaper. They were in the plain old dining-room with its smaller fireplace and its big old-fashioned cupboards built into the wall on either side of the projecting chimney-piece. "There ain't much," resumed Sallie. "But I reckon you kin make out." On the gayly patterned table cover she set an array of substantial plates and glasses. From various cupboards in dining-room and adjoining kitchen she assembled a glass pitcher of sweet milk, a glass pitcher of buttermilk, a plate of cold cornbread, a platter of cold fried chicken, a dish of golden butter, a pan of cold fried potatoes, a jar of preserved crab apples and another of peach butter. Susan watched with hungry eyes. She was thinking of nothing but food now. Her aunt looked at her and smiled.