r close to
Miss Asenath. He had been spending a very miserable time down by the
Branch. And he would never have come near the house had he not heard
the piano, for Timothy loved music intensely and he could never resist
following its sound. If Arethusa was still angry with him, he had no
intention of bothering her again; he only wanted to be allowed to
listen.

Miss Eliza came back to the sitting-room and settled once more to her
sewing. Miss Asenath closed her eyes and gave herself over to dreaming.
It was her book of ballads, and she had used to, long ago, play them
softly in just such twilights for another Timothy. Miss Letitia's busy
fingers worked away and her head nodded time.

The late summer evening with its myriads of sounds and that feeling of
restless settling down for the night that it always seems to have in
the country, slowly deepened into darkness and Arethusa still played
on. Perhaps her execution was not of the best and her fingering may
have been questionable; but she seemed to feel some of the real spirit
of the quaint old tunes she played and she put a soft expression into
them that was far more to her circle of listeners than brilliant
execution or perfect fingering. None of them could have found the
smallest fault: the music spoke to each one of them in that way each
one most wanted.

So she played on softly until Mandy came, announcing supper.

Timothy must stay, Miss Eliza insisted. But Timothy declined, even
though Arethusa, with rather strange cordiality considering what she
had said at the Branch, joined her voice to Miss Eliza's. The music had
spoken to Arethusa herself, to soften. Timothy's mood, however, was not
inclined for conversation on general topics, and at Miss Eliza's
supper-table one nearly always conversed on general topics.

CHAPTER X

The only persons at the Farm who did not go to the station to see
Arethusa off for her Trip were Miss Asenath and Nathan. Even Mandy
went, on the front seat of the surrey with Blish.

Nathan was Mandy's better half, a darkey of a deeply religious nature.
He considered a town, everything in it, and everything connected with
it, snares of the Evil One to lead men astray. Although in his youth,
and up almost until early middle age, he had been the terror of the
county seat the Saturday nights he had been paid off, he had "gotten
religion" along about the time of his marriage to Mandy, and now
nothing on earth could take him anywhere