This was her first reference to Phil, and she had spoken of her daughter carelessly, casually. Amzi shuffled his feet on the hack floor.
"I guess Phil's back; she's been in Indianapolis. Phil's all right. There's nothing the matter with Phil."
He was so used to declaring Phil's all-rightness to his other sisters that the defensive attitude was second nature. His tone was not lost upon Lois and she replied quickly:—
"Of course, Phil's all right; I just wondered whether she were at home."
"She's with Tom," Amzi added; and as the hack had reached his house he clambered out and bade the driver carry in the bags.
She paused midway of the walk that led in from the street and surveyed the near landscape. This had been her father's house, and there within a stone's throw stood the cottage in which she had begun her married life. The street lights outlined it dimly, and her gaze passed on to the other houses upon the Montgomery acres, in which her sisters lived. These had not been there when she left, and the change they effected interested her, though, it seemed, not deeply.
The door was opened by a white-jacketed Negro.
"This is my sister, Mrs. Holton, Jerry. You can take her things right up to the front room."
"Yes, sah. Good-evenin', ma'am; good-evenin'. Mighty fine weather we're havin'; yes, ma'am, it shore is cole."
He helped her deftly, grinning with the joy of his hospitable race in "company," and pleased with the richness of the coat he was hanging carefully on the old rack in the hall.