nt the question was settled
for her. It was too late. She would only shame them if they knew her
there. She had caught her own name. They were talking of her.

"Well, you needn't," said the voice of Mrs. Pritchard "You can just save
your breath to cool your porridge You can't get nothin' out'n her."

"But she's traveled 'round so much, seems's though ..." began the other
woman's voice.

"_Don't_ it?" struck in old Mrs. Pritchard assentingly, "But 'tain't so!"

The other was at a loss. "Do you mean she's stuck-up and won't answer
you?" Mrs. Pritchard burst into a laugh, the great, resonant good-nature
of which amazed Virginia. She had not dreamed that one of these sour,
silent people could laugh like that. "No, _land_ no, Abby! She's as
soft-spoken as anybody could be, poor thing! She ain't got nothin' to say.
That's all. Why, I can git more out'n any pack-peddler that's only been
from here to Rutland and back than out'n her ... and she's traveled all
summer long for five years, she was tellin' us, and last year went around
the world."

"Good land! Think of it!" cried the other, awestruck. "China! An' Afriky!
An' London!"

"That's the way we felt! That's the reason we let her come. There ain't no
profit in one boarder, and we never take boarders, anyhow. But I thought
'twould be a chance for the young ones to learn something about how
foreign folks lived." She broke again into her epic laugh. "Why, Abby,
'twould ha' made you die to see us the first few days she was there,
tryin' to get somethin' out'n her. Italy, now ... had she been there? 'Oh,
yes, she _adored_ Italy!'" Virginia flushed at the echo of her own
exaggerated accent. "Well, we'd like to know somethin' about Italy. What
did they raise there? Honest, Abby, you'd ha' thought we'd hit her side
th' head. She thought and she _thought_, and all she could say was
'olives,' Nothing else? 'Well, she'd never noticed anything else ... oh,
yes, lemons.' Well, that seemed kind o' queer vittles, but you can't never
tell how foreigners git along, so we thought maybe they just lived off'n
olives and lemons; and Joel he asked her how they raised 'em, and if they
manured heavy or trusted to phosphate, and how long the trees took before
they began to bear, and if they pruned much, and if they had the same
trouble we do, come harvest time, to hire hands enough to git in th'
crop."

She paused. The other woman asked, "Well, what did she say?"

The echoes rang again to t