He was much moved. The flush came quickly to his face in a way she had known, and his eyes softened.
"I should ha' recognized ye anywheres, Milly," he asserted.
She still stood looking at him, unable to ask him in or to make apology for the lack.
"I went straight to your house from the train," he said. "'Twas all shut up. Don't anybody live there now?"
"Yes," answered Amelia, "somebody lives there." The red had come into her cheeks, and her eyes burned brightly. Then as he looked at her hesitatingly, in the way he used to look, she trembled a little.
"Come in, Jared," she said, retreating a hospitable space. "Come right in."
She stood aside, and then, when he stepped over the sill, led the way into the dining-room, where there was a cool green light from the darkened blinds, and the only window open to the sun disclosed a trembling grapevine and a vista down the garden path. Amelia drew forward a chair, with a decided motion.
"Sit down," she said, and busied herself with opening a blind.
When she took her own chair opposite him, she found that he had laid his hat beside him on the floor, and, with the tips of his fingers together, was bending forward in an attitude belonging to his youth. He was regarding her with the slightly blurred look of his near-sighted eyes, and she began hastily to speak.
"You stayin' round these parts?"