It was some moments before Jepson noted Andy Longwood, the “frequent visitor,” sitting on the steps of the porch, or heeded the high, chirping voice of the callow Isabel, who evidently carried on most of the conversation. The young fellow’s fair hair floated down upon his shoulders in loose ringlets, as he leaned back among the gourd-vines. He had a pensive brow, a long, curling dark lash, a large and tranquil eye. “Dad-burned purty little Woolly, I’ll swear,” Teck Jepson commented to himself, while courteously saluting Eli Strobe’s mother, who had instantly come to the door to receive him, and had sat down in a chair in the porch, folding her knotted hands peacefully in her lap. She was a thin, active, wizened little woman, considerably below the average height, and there were some sharp suggestions of mental agility, as well as physical, in her quick dark eyes. Her feet did not quite touch the floor, and as she stayed them on a rung of the chair she seemed rather perched than seated, and the instability of her position accented her tiny proportions. Her tall, burly, and deliberate son bore no trace of likeness to her, and she often observed, with the manner of discarding all responsibility for him, that he was “his dad over agin.” This “dad” of his had evidently not been an ornament to his sphere, and if he had met joy in his final estate it was well, since he had left peace behind him. For thirty years his relict had worn that peculiar freshened, released aspect common to many widows, and it was in Eli’s most stubborn moods that she usually felt called upon to mention the filial resemblance. Teck Jepson strode up the steps, including the two girls in the cursory glance which he bestowed upon the rest of the party, and a succinct “Howdy.” There was something always impressive in his height, his gait, and his imperious face, and Marcella was vaguely awed. Her hand trembled upon the thread she was spinning, and it broke beneath her touch. She did not have the voice, somehow, to join in the soberly piped “Howdy” with which Isabel returned the salutation. Jepson gave the “frequent visitor” no further notice, and he held himself sedulously aloof from the younger people, accepting a chair on the porch which Eli Strobe tendered him, and looking over their heads at the waning sunset-tide. “Waal, Teck,” Mrs. Strobe observed, after the greetings, “how d’ye like livin’ up on the high mounting?” She turned upon him her bright eyes, set very close together, like the small Isabel’s, and her dry lips distended in a faint smile, and then became speciously grave, as if they meant to keep all the fun to themselves. “It don’t make no differ to me, Mis’ Strobe,” he answered,—his rich, melancholy voice seemed to constrain the air to silence, and caused a remark of the “frequent visitor” to halt upon his lips, as he looked up with mute, respectful curiosity at the new-comer. “Whar the sperit leads me I will foller.”