"Settle your bed, Miss 'Lizabeth. It's good we've got linen enough, anyhow."
"Linen, —" said Elizabeth, — "and a bedstead, — have you got a bed to put on it?"
"There's been care took for that," said Clam, with the same satisfied expression and a little turn of her head.
Half angry and half sick, Elizabeth left her, and went in through her new-furnished keeping-room, to Karen's apartment where the table was bountifully spread and Mrs. Nettley and Karen awaited her coming. Elizabeth silently sat down.
"Ain't he comin'?" said Karen.
"No — I am very sorry — Mr. Landholm thinks he must finish what he is about first."
"He has lots o' thoughts," said Karen discontentedly, — "he'd think just as well after eatin'. — Well, Miss — Karen's done her best — There's been worse chickens than those be — Mis' Landholm used to cook 'em that way, and she didn't cook 'em no better. I s'pose he'll eat some by'm by — when he's done thinkin'."
She went off, and Elizabeth was punctually and silently taken care of by Mrs. Nettley. The meal over, she did not go back to her own premises; but took a stand in the open kitchen door, for a variety of reasons, and stood there, looking alternately out and in. The sun had set, the darkness was slowly gathering; soft purple clouds floated up from the west, over Wut-a-qut-o's head, which however the nearer heads of pines and cedars prevented her seeing. A delicate fringe of evergreen foliage edged upon the clear white sky. The fresher evening air breathed through the pine and cedar branches, hardly stirred their stiff leaves, but brought from them tokens of rare sweetness; brought them to Elizabeth's sorrowful face, and passed on. Elizabeth turned her face from the wind and looked into the house. Karen had made her appearance again, and was diligently taking away broken meats and soiled dishes and refreshing the look of the table; setting some things to warm and some things to cool; giving the spare plate and knife and fork the advantage of the best place at table; brushing away crumbs, and smoothing down the salt-cellar. "You are over particular!" thought Elizabeth; — "it would do him no harm to come after me in handling the salt-spoon! — that even that trace of me should be removed." She looked out again.
Her friend the locust now and then was reminding her of the long hot day they had passed through together; and the intervals between were filled up by a chorus of grasshoppers and crickets and katydids. Soft and sweet blew the west wind again; that spoke not of the bygone day, with its burden and heat; but of rest, and repose, and the change that cometh even to sorrowful things. The day was passed and gone. "But if one day is passed, another is coming," — thought Elizabeth; and tears, hot and bitter tears, sprang to her eyes. How could those clouds float so softly! — how could the light and shadow rest so lovely on them! — how could the blue ether look so still and clear! "Can one be like that?" — thought Elizabeth. "Can I? — with this boiling depth of passion and will in my nature? — One can —" and she again turned her eyes within. But nothing was there, save the table, the supper, and Karen. The question arose, what she herself was standing there for? but passion and will said they did not care! she would stand there; and she did. It was pleasant to stand there; for passion and will, though they had their way, seemed to her feeling to be quieted down under nature's influences. Perhaps the most prominent thought now was of a great discord between nature and her, between her and right, — which was to be made up. But still, while her face was towards the western sky and soft wind, and her mind thought this, her ear listened for a step on the kitchen floor. The colours of the western sky had grown graver and cooler before it came.
It came, and there was the scrape of a chair on the wooden floor. He had sat down, and Karen had got up; but Elizabeth would not look in.