“Can you give me a pound of butter?” she asked, in a curious detached way of one speaking a foreign language.
He tried to attend to her question. She was looking at him questioningly. But underneath the question, what was there, in her very standing motionless, which affected him?
He stepped aside and she at once entered the house, as if the door had been opened to admit her. That startled him. It was the custom for everybody to wait on the doorstep till asked inside. He went into the kitchen and she followed.
His tea-things were spread on the scrubbed deal table, a big fire was burning, a dog rose from the hearth and went to her. She stood motionless just inside the kitchen.
“Tilly,” he called loudly, “have we got any butter?”
The stranger stood there like a silence in her black cloak.
“Eh?” came the shrill cry from the distance.
He shouted his question again.
“We’ve got what’s on t’ table,” answered Tilly’s shrill voice out of the dairy.
Brangwen looked at the table. There was a large pat of butter on a plate, almost a pound. It was round, and stamped with acorns and oak-leaves.