A round, good-natured face, crowning a rotund, generous figure, smiled at them from the kitchen window, but while the eyes smiled, the thick, full lips uttered a somewhat different message to a tall, thin woman, bending over the stove.
"Ruth Ann, here's that soapy Hank Dillson round again,—takin' in the farmers, as usual, engagin' them to pay for machinery and buildings more than are needed, considerin' the number of their cows, an' he's got a washed-out lookin' young one with him. She'll make a breach in the victuals, I guess."
Ruth Ann, who was her sister and helper in household affairs, came and looked over her shoulder, just as Dillson sprang from the sleigh.
Mrs. Minley stepped to the door, and stood bobbing and smiling as he turned to her.
"How de do, Mrs. Minley. Give this little girl a place to lie down till dinner's ready, will you? She's dead beat."
'Tilda Jane walked gravely into the kitchen, and although her head was heavy, and her feet as light as if they were about to waft her to regions above, she took time to scrutinise the broad face that would have been generous but for the deceitful lips, and also to cast a glance at the hard, composed woman at the window, who looked as if her head, including the knob of tightly curled hair at the back, had been carved from flint.
"Step right in this way," said Mrs. Minley, bustling into a small bedroom on the ground floor.
'Tilda Jane was not used to being waited on, and for one proud moment she wished that the children in the orphan asylum could see her. Then a feeling of danger and insecurity overcame her, and she sank on one of the painted, wooden chairs.
"You're done out," said Mrs. Minley, sympathetically. "Are you a relation of Mr. Dillson's?"