When she came out suddenly from behind the undergrowth that screened her, they were only a few yards apart, and Coats Penniman stopped on a forward step, stood quite still. Ann saw the spasm that crossed his face, lifting his brows and widening his eyes. She thought that she had startled him; he did not know who she was.
"It's Ann, father—" she said, with a quivering smile. "I—I came to meet you—"
His face changed, settled into deep lines about his mouth, into wrinkles about his eyes, the look of her grandfather upon him—until he smiled, though it was more a twitching of the muscles in his cheeks than an actual smile.
"Ann—" He drew an audible breath. "I—wasn't expecting it—"
He came to her, for Ann stood rooted; no volition of hers could have brought her an inch nearer to that look of her grandfather, covered by that painful smile. "So you came to meet me?" He put his hands on her shoulders. "It's fourteen years since I saw you—you have grown up—child."
There was all the sorrow of the forsaken in the dazed shrinking look Ann gave him. "Yes, I've grown up," she said in tones as colorless as her face. "But I know you—you look like grandpa."
He bent and kissed her cheek, then took his hands from her shoulders, and he said what Sue had said: "And you are a Penniman, too, Ann—we're all Pennimans—we'll never outgrow that.... How are you, child?"
"I am well, suh."
"And Cousin Sue and Uncle Will?"
"They are well—they are expectin' you."