The promised plenitude of Peachy Williams' girlhood had been nobly fulfilled in the Widow Tarwater, for now she suggested an abundant harvest. A handsome black silk gown folded over her more than ample bosom, a double chin rippled from under the soft fulness of her broad face, her skin was white and crimson as a child's, her auburn hair without a thread of gray in it, and her huge brown eyes never having looked deep down into the waters of life showed none of its troubled reflections. Uncle Ambrose nodded approvingly at her appearance the while she looked at him coldly, saying: "I ain't seen you to talk to in a long time, Ambrose Thompson." His reply flatteringly included the member of the Kentucky legislature on the widow's right. "'Course you ain't, Peachy," he answered gallantly, "for when big stars is shinin' so close to a planet, t'ain't to be expected that the planet kin notice the little ones twitterin' about in her neighbourhood." And yet when supper was served the widow found herself placed at a table for four whose other occupants were three men instead of the two whom she had expected. CHAPTER XV ORIGINAL SIN THE Widow Tarwater was in truth a pleasing vision. Not once had Ambrose Thompson left her side, yet he had been uncommonly silent. Thoughts, rose coloured as a boy's dream of a holiday, were floating before his mind's eye; he had been but dimly conscious that two plates of warm soup had lately flowed into him the while the conversation around him flowed on unceasingly. For the spirit of romance, which is an eternal though elusive thing, was surely taking fresh hold on him this evening as his pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and only Miner Hobbs, the little wooden figure of a man seated several tables off, was yet aware of his friend's exalted state. At the present moment the Rev. Elias Tupper was talking to the widow. He had but lately traversed the room crowded with tables and resplendent with decorations of harvest apples, pumpkins, goldenrod and tall tasselled stalks of corn, dispensing pleasantries as one would lollipops; and now amid much joking, laughter, and nudging had been allowed to take his place next the widow, only the legislator, who was making but a few weeks' visit in Pennyroyal, appearing disquieted. It was past seven o'clock and assuredly the new Baptist Sunday-school room was now the centre of Pennyroyal's social activities, when unexpectedly the tall figure of a boy lurched into the room--Pennyroyal's black sheep, a boy taller than any man in the village save Ambrose Thompson. There was a dismayed flutter and then an uncomfortable silence.