She smiled inwardly when she saw the same old wave of
disappointment sweep across the faces of them all. It was not
necessary to shake hands, but unthinkingly she did, and the women
sat in their chairs as she went from one to the other and each
gave her a limp hand and a grave "howdye," though each paid an
unconscious tribute to a vague something about her, by wiping that
hand on an apron first. Very quietly and naturally she took a low
chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them, went to work.
Nobody looked at her at first until old Hon broke the silence.
"You haint lost a spec o' yo' good looks, Juny."
June laughed without a flush--she would have reddened to the roots
of her hair two years before.
"I'm feelin' right peart, thank ye," she said, dropping
consciously into the vernacular; but there was a something in her
voice that was vaguely felt by all as a part of the universal
strangeness that was in her erect bearing, her proud head, her
deep eyes that looked so straight into their own--a strangeness
that was in that belt and those stockings and those shoes,
inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye in time
covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was
beyond their ken.
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