It was a novel situation in which the stranger found himself, seated at that table with Eudora presiding and Mandy Ann waiting upon them, her tray a dinner-plate which she flourished rather conspicuously.  He was quick to observe and nothing escaped him, from the improvised candlesticks to the napkin by his china plate.  He knew it was a handkerchief, and smiled inwardly as he wondered what Tom Hardy would say if he could see him now.  The old lady was not at the table.  Mandy Ann had managed that and attended to her in her chair, but as if eating brightened her faculties, she began to look about her and talk, and ask why she couldn’t sit at her own table.

“‘Case thar’s a gemman hyar an’ you draps yer vittles so,” Mandy Ann said in a whisper, with her lips close to the old woman’s ear.

“Gentleman?  Who’s he?  Whar’s he from?” the old woman asked—­forgetting that she had spoken to him.

“I told you oncet he’s Miss Dory’s frien’ an’ from de Norf.  Do be quiet,” Mandy Ann blew into the deaf ears.

“From the Nawth.  I don’t like the Nawth, ’case I—­” the old lady began, but Mandy Ann choked her with a muffin, and she did not finish her sentence and tell why she disliked the North.

Eudora’s face was scarlet, but she did not interfere.  Her grandmother was in better hands than hers, and more forceful.

“Granny is queer sometimes,” she said by way of apology, while her guest bowed in token that he understood, and the meal proceeded in quiet with one exception.  Granny was choked with eating too fast, and Mandy Ann struck her on her back and shook her up, and dropped her dinner-plate and broke it in her excitement.

“For de Lawd’s sake, ’tan’t no use,” she said, gathering up the pieces and taking them to the kitchen, where Sonsie laughed till the tears ran at Mandy Ann’s attempt “to be gran’,” and its result.

Meanwhile the stranger ate Sonsie’s corn cakes and muffins, and said they were good, and drank muddy coffee, sweetened with brown sugar out of a big thick cup, and thought of his dainty service at home, and glanced at the girl opposite him with a great pity, which, however, did not move him one whit from his purpose.  He had told her his plan and she had accepted it, and he told it again when, after supper, she walked with him through the clearing and the woods to the main road which led to the river.  He did the talking, while she answered yes or no, with a sound of tears in her voice.  When they reached the highway they stopped by the sunken grave, and leaning against the fence which inclosed it, Eudora removed her sunbonnet, letting the moon shine upon her face, as it had done when she sat in the clearing.  It was very white but there were no tears now in her eyes.  She was forcing them back and she tried to smile as she said, “You are very kind, and I think I understand what you want, and here by this grave I promise all you ask, and will do my best—­my very best.”