It was a silent meal, albeit the little old dame and Isabel were among the partakers. When they all repaired again to the porch, they found the moonlight there, with yellow slanting rays and long, melancholy shadows, and the distorted waning disk itself hung in the purple spaces above the black mountain that the house faced. The fireflies were quenched; only now and then a feeble gleam stole forth from a dark cluster of gourd-leaves. The perfume of the orchard was sweet on the air; the dew glittered on the low summits of the old gnarled trees. The men and the old woman lighted their pipes, and the coterie silently smoked, while Marcella sat on the steps of the porch, in the full radiance of the midsummer sheen, her idle hands folded upon one knee, her lustrous eyes turned upward to the moon, the wind lightly tossing her curling hair. Within, the candle still sputtered, while Isabel washed the dishes and pans,—this being her allotted task,— and made a great clatter to better express her industry. It was all very still without; a constraint oppressed the group. Each had regrets in the premises, and harbored resentments. The occupation of smoking, the meditative languor which the consumption of tobacco warrants, precluded the necessity for conversation, and afforded an interval for the recuperation of the downcast spirits of the company. Small wonder that Clem Sanders, listening from his roof-room window, heard no laughing or talking at Strobe’s! Suddenly the shrill clamor of a screech-owl invaded the nocturnal quietude; again and yet again, with its sinister, mirthless chuckle supplementing and seeming to ridicule its own hysteric outcry. It grated upon the nerves of Mrs. Strobe, already subjected to some unusual tension. “Laws-a-massy, jes’ listen ter that thar n’isy fow-_el_. He be a-goin’ ter screech thar haffen the night, I’ll be bound; an’ he air a sure sign o’ death, ter holler nigh a chimbly. Jes’ listen at him, now, a-laffin’ at the corpse!” Once more the low, joyless, mocking merriment jarred the air. “Take yer dad’s gun thar, Marcelly, an’ run down in the orchard, an’ fire it off at him. He be right yander in that thar sheep-nose apple-tree.” Marcella rose slowly. “I’ll drive him off,” she said, “but I ain’t a-goin’ ter fire no gun off at him; the critter hev got ez good a right ter live ez I hev. I’ll fling a sheep-nose apple at him, an’ that be ez much ez I be a-goin’ ter do ter him.” “Listen at the sassiness of the stiff-necked generation!” exclaimed the old woman, evidently the exordium of a tirade against the young folks nowadays. But Marcella was already far down the grassy slope, and out of hearing; and with one scornful glance after her, Mrs. Strobe put her pipe into her mouth, and sourly relapsed into silence.