"'Let her alone,' says I, philosophic. 'Leave her be.'
"But inside I ached like the toothache for the poor thing—for Elspie. An' I says to her, when she come home:—
"'Elspie,' I says, 'why don't you go out 'round some an' see folks here in the village? The minister's wife'd be rill glad to hev you come,' I says.
"'Oh, I hate to hev 'em sit thinkin' about me in behind their eyes,' s'she, ready.
"'What?' says I, blank.
"'It comes out through their eyes,' she says. 'They keep thinkin': Poor, poor, poor Elspie. If they was somebody dead't I could go to see,' she told me, smilin', 'I'd do that. A grave can't poor you,' she told me, 'an' everybody that's company to you does.'
"'Well!' says I, an' couldn't, in logic, say no more.
"That evenin' Eb come in an' set down on the edge of a chair, experimental, like he was testin' the cane.
"'Miss Cally,' s'e, when Elspie was out o' the room, 'you goin' t' let her go with them folks to the Alice County poorhouse?'
"I guess I dissembulated some under my eyelids—bein' I see t' Eb's mind was givin' itself little lurches.