Presently Billie brought out a tray with a cup and saucer, sugar and cream and some thin slices of buttered bread. From the upper gallery there came to her the low hum of conversation. The sleepers had awakened and were getting bathed and dressed. "Do you know Phoebe?" she asked, while she poured the coffee. The herb-gatherer smacked her lips and sniffed the air expectantly. "I've seen her." "Don't you feel sorry for her to lose her father? She is very unhappy." "No sugar," exclaimed the old woman, ignoring the question. "Good!" she exclaimed. "Fine coffee!" Presently Billie poured out another cup and finally another. "You like coffee, don't you?" she said. "This fine coffee." "We send away for it. The village coffee is not good." "I never tasted the like before." "If you will answer me a question," said Billie suddenly, "I will get my father to send you enough of this coffee to last all winter." The old woman picked up the coffee pot and drained it to the last drop. "If I tell," she said, warmed and stimulated by the hot drink, "it make lot trouble." "Trouble for whom?" "Much trouble for all." "All I am to say to Phoebe then is that her father is in good hands and she is not to look for him?" The herb-gatherer nodded. "How soon will he be coming back?" She shook her head and seizing her staff, rose to go. "Are you a friend of the Lupos?" There was no answer. Billie tried again. "Did Mrs. Lupo ever go back to her husband?" "Lupo very angry. She not go back." "She needn't stay away on our account. My cousin forgave her long ago." "I go now," announced the old woman, not taking the slightest notice of Billie's remarks. "I am very much obliged to you for the news of Phoebe's father. Every time you bring us any news, you may have coffee, and if you show us where he is,--quite secretly, you know,--you shall have a great deal of coffee and money, too." "I go now," repeated the strange old creature, pretending not to understand Billie's offer, and she promptly took her leave without another word. Billie gathered up the tray and the coffee things and carried them into the kitchen. "It looks like rain, Alberdina. I think we had better eat indoors to-night," she said. Something, perhaps the east wind charged with wet, had made her feel dispirited and uneasy. She was homesick for her father and she wished that Dr. Hume had not gone away. She almost wished they had never set eyes on Phoebe and her father at all. How complicated life had suddenly become! They were just a party of well-meaning campers taking a summer holiday on the mountainside, meaning no harm to anybody on earth; and having done a little kindness to a poor girl and her half-crazed father, they had obtained the enmity of an entire village. How cruel and ignorant these people were! How warped and uncharitable!