They walked up the river to the overseer's house, where they were made welcome by Mary Carter and small Roger, and by old Mr. Morrowcombe, who was staying over from Sunday, which was yesterday. He said, much as Mancy had said: "I'm sorry you are going! But thar! You ain't going in the old, harsh ways."
Marget, sitting beside him on the step of the porch, rested her arm upon his knee. Her brown, slender hand touched his great horny one. "Grandfather Morrowcombe!" she said. He answered her: "I see you as a nine-year-old, Marget, and I see you as a woman in Sweet Rocket Valley, and I see you as something that stands above child and woman. It isn't any more big than it is subtle-fine. It's puzzling to find words. But when I look at you and think of you I seem to hear the air stirring over the whole world. All kinds of things that I had forgotten, and all kinds of things that I have read...."
She and Anna sat for five minutes under the sycamore by the water. Returning then to Sweet Rocket, they walked in the garden that was making ready for winter. As it happened, Mrs. Cliff came this day down mountain to borrow some sugar. She sat on the steps of the back porch, in the violet light of November. "Howdy!" she said to Miss Darcy. "I'm glad you stayed on. When I come here I want to stay on, too. But thar! I take the memory of it up to my home. You wouldn't think how often thar I'm here, too!"
To-day she had a braided rug to sell, and Marget bought it. Mrs. Cliff's long, wrinkled hand put the money in her pocket. "Times isn't betterin' any, Miss Marget."
Marget laughed. "Oh, the poor old times!"
It startled Anna Darcy, too, so joyous and care-free and lilting was the voice. Mrs. Cliff stared at her. The mountain woman's face was not what one would call a cheerful one. Whoever was behind it was caught in a network of fine, anxious lines. Now these held for a perceptible moment, then faded as though the twine were mist. That one immortally youthful and insouciant looked forth as it had looked from Marget. Sun came out over meadow, plain, and hill, and Mrs. Cliff laughed. "I reckon you're right, Miss Marget! You generally are. I reckon we've seen so much that we can afford to take it tranquil—which ain't to say that we're either do-less or keerless!"
She spoke to Anna. "You remember my tellin' you about that feeling I had? I 'ain't had it full again. But I've caught glimpses of it, maybe in the day, maybe in the night. I know the minute when anything like it comes my way. When you've had a feeling like that all your life's set to feeling it again."
But Marget had taken it joyously.