It was mid-afternoon of the day following her arrival. The rain was intermitted, not definitely ceased; there would be more of it; but just now the air was warm and the sun brilliant. Mountain fashion, the door of the cabin stood wide. Mary Ann Martha had a corn pone, and she took occasional bites from it as she circled the visitor, staring at her with avid, hazel eyes, that troubled Callista's calm whenever she caught the fire of them, so like Lance's. Marauding chickens came across the door-stone and ventured far on the child's trail of crumbs; the light cackle of their whispered duckings, the scratch of their claws on the puncheons, alone broke the stillness. Callista sat by the doorway, a dead weight at her heart. The pallor, the weariness of it, were plain in her face. "Good land, Polly--cain't you take this chap over yon in the woods and lose her?" demanded the widow in final exasperation, as Mary Ann Martha turned suddenly on the chicken that was stalking her, and shooed it, squalling, from the door. "I want to get out my quilt and work on it." All unconscious that these things were done on her behalf, Callista saw the unwilling Mary Ann Martha marched away. She beheld the gospel quilt brought out and spread on the widow's knees [218] quite as some chatelaine of old might have produced her tapestry for the diversion of the guest. Over the gulf of pain and regret and apprehension--this well of struggling, seething emotion--lightly rippled the surface sounds of life, material talk, bits of gossip, that Callista roused herself to harken to and answer. Roxy spoke in a solemn, muffled tone, something the voice she would have used if her father or Sylvane were dead in the house. She would have been more than human, and less than woman, had she not to some degree relished the situation. She remembered with deep satisfaction that, though she was his own sister, she had always reprehended Lance publicly and privately, holding him unfit to mate with this paragon. Callista had the sensation of being at her own funeral. She drooped, colorless and inert, in her chair, and stared past everything the room contained, out through the open door and across the far blue rim of hills. "I believe in my soul these here needles Sylvane got me is too fine for my cotton," Roxy murmured, by way of attracting attention. "I wonder could you thread one for me, Callisty? Your eyes is younger than mine." Callista took the needle and threaded it, handing it back with a sigh. As she did so, her glance encountered Roxy's solicitous gaze, then fell to the quilt. "You--you've done a sight of work on that, haven't you, Sis' Roxy?" she asked gently. [219] The widow nodded. "An' there's a sight more to do," she added. "This is a pretty figure," Callista said, pointing at random, but producing a kindly show of interest. Roxy brightened.