The old woman was making bread, her arms deep in the clinging dough. But as Anne spoke, she scraped the dough from them and came quietly round the table.
"You're going back and, do you know, I'm glad. We'll miss you. When we heard you was coming we were kind of upset only there didn't seem to be any good reason why you shouldn't. But now, we'll miss you. You fit in. I guess me and pa got to think we were the only people that like it quiet and I suppose there's lots—even down there." She always spoke so of the world beyond the mountains, "down there," with a nod and a little gesture out and downward.
"Yes. I think that they want quiet down there more than they want anything in the whole world. They look and look for it and—some find it. The world is getting noisier and faster, and yet there are more and more people looking for—Stillness." She smiled. "Churches even advertise it in the papers—half hours and quarter hours of Silence."
"Well! Down there they'd make a business out of most anything, wouldn't they? Advertising silence! Why, it's about the only thing everybody can have."
"Yes—but we don't find that out. We're all making such a noise looking for it."
Mary Potter wiped one hand on her apron and laid it on Anne's shoulder. "I guess you won't make much noise looking for it now, will you?"
"No—I don't—think I will. I'll try not to, anyhow."
"I'd like to have seen the baby. His picture's awful cute."
"He is cute. And as good as gold."
"Maybe you'll want to come back in the Spring and can bring him with you?"