The bride looked from her bridegroom to the brown girl strangely. In her own fashion, she was as unwilling to be outdone as Lance himself. "This here is Lance's house," she said coldly. "He bids them that he chooses to it. But I reckon he don't aim to have any dancin'." Roxy Griever paused in the doorway and peered in. "I reckon the trouble is that none of the folks here know how to dance," Ola was saying doubtfully. "Let's you and me show 'em, Lance. Come on." Wildly, the sister cast about her for aid. Old Ajax regarded the scene with the same covert enjoyment he had given another domestic embroglio. Her father had slipped through a back door under pretense of seeing to the horse. Her glance fell on Flenton Hands. This was the man for her need. Earlier in the evening, when Flenton made his appearance in Lance Cleaverage's house, accompanying his sisters, Octavia had murmured, "Well, I vow! Ef I'd 'a' been him, ox chains and plow lines couldn't have drug me here, after what was said an' done last night." Even Roxana had wondered at the cold obtuseness that could prompt the acceptance on Flent's part of that general [144] invitation Lance had flung back over his shoulder to the deserted wedding guests, and looked in vain to see what it was that Hands expected to gain by his attitude. There was some whispering and staring among the other guests, but Flenton Hands was admitted to be "quare," and his connection with the Settlement offered a ready means of accounting for his not doing things like other people. Now the Widow Griever felt that Providence--it is wonderful how people of her sort find Providence ever retained on their own side of the case--had dictated the attendance of this exemplary and godly person, second only in authority concerning church matters to Brother Drumright. She hastily dragged him aside, pouring out the whole matter, in voluble, hissing whispers, with many backward jerks of the head or thumb toward where Ola and Lance, in the midst of a group of boys and girls, still laughed and joked. "I don't know as I ort to mix into this here business," Hands began cautiously--the man was not altogether a fool. "The way things has turned out, looks like I ain't got no call to interfere." "'Course you have," Roxy Griever told him. "Preacher Drumright ain't here--ef he was, I'd not even have to name it to him; he'd walk right up to Lance Cleaverage in a minute--spite o' the way Lance done him last night--an' tell [145] him what he ort an' ort not to do. An' yo' the next after Preacher Drumright. Go 'long, Flenton. Speak to him. Mr. Gentry won't, an' Poppy's done left to git out of hit. Poppy never would do what he ort where Lance was consarned. He wouldn't give that boy discipline when he could have kivvered him with one hand--an' now look at the fruits of it!"