She was unprepared for the sudden and baleful transformation of face and manner that swept over him with the announcement. A moment before he had been affable, and her own eyes had sparkled delightedly at the mother-wit of his observations and the quaint idiom and metaphor of his speech. Now, in an instant, he stiffened into affronted rigidity, and made no effort to conceal the black, almost malignant, wave of hostility that usurped the recent mildness of his eyes. "Ye're ther same one that used ter be Boone Wellver's gal," he declared scornfully; and the girl, accustomed to local idiosyncrasies, flushed less at the direct personality of the statement than at the accusing note of its delivery. "Used to be?" The question was the only response that for the instant of surprise came to her mind. Cyrus Spradling spat on the ground as his staff beat a tattoo. "Wa'al, thet war y'ars back, an' ye hain't nuver wedded with him yit." The old man stood there actually trembling with a rage induced by something at which she had no means of guessing. She, too, drew herself up with a sudden stiffness and would have turned away, but he was prompter. "Hit 'pears like no woman won't hev him! I reckon I don't blame 'em none, nuther. I disgusts ther feller my own self," and before she could gather any key to the extraordinary incident, he had gone trudging on, mumbling the while into his unshaven beard. Anne walked perplexedly homeward, and out of it all she could winnow only one kernel of comprehensible detail. Obviously she had met an enemy of Boone's, and yet she had heard Mr. McCalloway speak with warmth of the neighbourly kindness of Cyrus Spradling. When she entered the house her father was sitting before the hearth, somewhat emaciated after his tedious convalescence, and his eyes followed her with a wistful dependence as she measured his medicine and rearranged the pillows at his back. When, finally, she, too, drew a chair close to the blaze, the man said seriously: "When your mother was your age, Anne, you had been born." To this statistical announcement, the obvious response being denied by kindness, she made no answer. Perhaps she could not help reflecting had her mother been more deliberate, many years of discontent might have been escaped. "My family has little to thank me for," observed Masters at last, with a candour that the daughter found embarrassing. "Conversely, I dare say, I have little claim to expect much--and yet even life's derelicts are subject to human emotions." "For instance, Daddy?" "Tom Wallifarro stands pretty close to his allotment of three score and ten," came the thoughtful answer. "Neither your mother nor I is exactly young. It would be a comfort to think of you as settled, with your own life plans drawn and arranged."