“O, yes’m,” returned the girl, gladly.  “Almost every day, in the summatime.”

“You have got a pretty place for a home, he’e,” said Mrs. Lander.

“Well, it will be when it’s finished up.”  Without leaning forward inconveniently Mrs. Lander could see that the partitions of the house within were lathed, but not plastered, and the girl looked round as if to realize its condition and added, “It isn’t quite finished inside.”

“We wouldn’t, have troubled you,” said Mrs. Lander, “if we had seen anybody to inquire of.”

“Yes’m,” said the girl.  “It a’n’t any trouble.”

“There are not many otha houses about, very nea’, but I don’t suppose you get lonesome; young folks are plenty of company for themselves, and if you’ve got any brothas and sistas—­”

“Oh,” said the girl, with a tender laugh, “I’ve got eva so many of them!”

There was a stir in the bushes about the carriage, and Mrs. Lander was aware for an instant of children’s faces looking through the leaves at her and then flashing out of sight, with gay cries at being seen.  A boy, older than the rest, came round in front of the horse and passed out of sight at the corner of the house.

Lander now leaned back and looked over his shoulder at his wife as if he might hopefully suppose she had come to the end of her questions, but she gave no sign of encouraging him to start on their way again.

“That your brotha, too?” she asked the girl.

“Yes’m.  He’s the oldest of the boys; he’s next to me.”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Lander thoughtfully, “as I noticed how many boys there were, or how many girls.”

“I’ve got two sistas, and three brothas, ’m,” said the girl, always smiling sweetly.  She now emerged from the shelter of the door, and Mrs. Lander perceived that the slight movements of such parts of her person as had been evident beyond its edge were the effects of some endeavor at greater presentableness.  She had contrived to get about her an overskirt which covered the rent in her frock, and she had got a pair of shoes on her feet.  Stockings were still wanting, but by a mutual concession of her shoe-tops and the border of her skirt, they were almost eliminated from the problem.  This happened altogether when the girl sat down on the threshold, and got herself into such foreshortening that the eye of Mrs. Lander in looking down upon her could not detect their absence.  Her little head then showed in the dark of the doorway like a painted head against its background.

“You haven’t been livin’ here a great while, by the looks,” said Mrs. Lander.  “It don’t seem to be clea’ed off very much.”

“We’ve got quite a ga’den-patch back of the house,” replied the girl, “and we should have had moa, but fatha wasn’t very well, this spring; he’s eva so much better than when we fust came he’e.”

“It has, the name of being a very healthy locality,” said Mrs. Lander, somewhat discontentedly, “though I can’t see as it’s done me so very much good, yit.  Both your payrints livin’?”