at least. The earth had been banked up at the
foundations for warmth in winter, and the sheathing of the walls had been
splotched with irregular spaces of weather boarding; there was a good
roof over all, but the window-casings had been merely set in their places
and the trim left for a future impulse of the builder. A block of wood
suggested the intention of steps at the front door, which stood
hospitably open, but remained unresponsive for some time after the
Landers made their appeal to the house at large by anxious noises in
their throats, and by talking loud with each other, and then talking low.
They wondered whether there were anybody in the house; and decided that
there must be, for there was smoke coming out of the stove pipe piercing
the roof of the wing at the rear.

Mr. Lander brought himself under censure by venturing, without his wife's
authority, to lean forward and tap on the door-frame with the butt of his
whip. At the sound, a shrill voice called instantly from the region of
the stove pipe, "Clem! Clementina? Go to the front dooa! The'e's somebody
knockin'." The sound of feet, soft and quick, made itself heard within,
and in a few moments a slim maid, too large for a little girl, too
childlike for a young girl, stood in the open doorway, looking down on
the elderly people in the buggy, with a face as glad as a flower's. She
had blue eyes, and a smiling mouth, a straight nose, and a pretty chin
whose firm jut accented a certain wistfulness of her lips. She had hair
of a dull, dark yellow, which sent out from its thick mass light prongs,
or tendrils, curving inward again till they delicately touched it. Her
tanned face was not very different in color from her hair, and neither
were her bare feet, which showed well above her ankles in the calico
skirt she wore. At sight of the elders in the buggy she involuntarily
stooped a little to lengthen her skirt in effect, and at the same time
she pulled it together sidewise, to close a tear in it, but she lost in
her anxiety no ray of the joy which the mere presence of the strangers
seemed to give her, and she kept smiling sunnily upon them while she
waited for them to speak.

"Oh!" Mrs. Lander began with involuntary apology in her tone, "we just
wished to know which of these roads went to South Middlemount. We've come
from the hotel, and we wa'n't quite ce'tain."

The girl laughed as she said, "Both roads go to South Middlemount'm; they
join together again just