Lance barely returned her greeting, then he broached his errand. "Jane! Ellen! Oh, Flent!" she called distressfully, when she had his news, "Come on out. Lance Cleaverage is here, waitin' to invite you to his weddin'." The two sisters came out on the porch, but Flenton did not make his appearance. "Howdy, Lance. Who is it?" inquired Ellen Hands. "Callista Gentry hasn't took you, has she?" "Well," drawled Lance, lifting a laughing eye to the line of big, gray-faced women on the rude, puncheon-floored gallery, "you can make it out best way you find. The weddin' is to be held at the Gentry place. If it ain't Callista, it's somebody mighty like her." Little Liza's lip trembled. "You Lance Cleaverage," she said huskily, "you're a-gettin' the sweetest prettiest thing that ever walked this earth. I do know that there ain't the man livin' that's fit for Callisty. I hope to the Lord you'll be good to her." Again Lance regarded the doleful visages before him and laughed. "You-all look like I'd bid you to a funeral rather than to a weddin'," he said, lingering a bit to see if Flenton would show himself. [84] Hands was just inside the window. He knew well what had been said. Nothing could have been less to his taste than the going out to receive such an invitation. "Thar--you see now, Flent," said Little Liza tragically, as she encountered her brother when they turned from watching Lance away. "You've lost her. Oh, law! I always thought if I could call Callisty Gentry sister, it would make me the happiest critter in the world." "You may have a chance so to call her yet," said Hands, who showed any emotion the announcement may have roused in him only by an added tightening of lip and eye. "Wednesday ain't come yet--and hit ain't gone." "Well, hit'll come and hit'll go," said Ellen heavily. "Lance Cleaverage gits what he starts after, and that's the fact." "Yes," agreed Little Liza, "he shore does. I don't reckon I could have said no to him myself." "Lance Cleaverage!" echoed her brother. "Well, he's born--but he ain't buried. I never did yet give up a thing that I'd set my mind on. I ain't said I've given up Callista Gentry." The three looked at him rather wildly. Talk of this sort is unknown among the mountain people. Yet they could but feel the woman's admiration for his masculine high-handedness of speech.