Susan tried in vain to respond. She stood gazing.
"What d'ye want?"
"He he told me to go in," faltered Susan. She had no sense of reality. It was a dream—only a dream—and she would awaken in her own clean pretty pale-gray bedroom with Ruth gayly calling her to come down to breakfast.
"Who are you?" demanded Keziah—for at a glance it was the sister.
"I'm—I'm Susan Lenox."
"Oh—Zeke Warham's niece. Come right in." And Keziah looked as if she were about to bite and claw.
Susan pushed open the latchless gate, went up the short path to the doorstep. "I think I'll wait till he comes," she said.
"No. Come in and sit down, Miss Lenox." And Keziah drew a rush-bottomed rocking chair toward the doorway. Susan was looking at the interior. The lower floor of the house was divided into three small rooms. This central room was obviously the parlor—the calico-covered sofa, the center table, the two dingy chromos, and a battered cottage organ made that certain. On the floor was a rag carpet; on the walls, torn and dirty paper, with huge weather stains marking where water had leaked from the roof down the supporting beams. Keziah scowled at Susan's frank expression of repulsion for the surroundings. Susan seated herself on the edge of the chair, put her bundle beside her.
"I allow you'll stay to dinner," said Keziah.
"Yes," replied Susan.