He cried bravely. "It's only the beginning! Wait till you see our cattle herded over the mountain to the railroad; wait till you see a spur come up the Sugarloaf and haul away our hardwood. Just you wait"
There was the clip-clip of a horse outside, and the creaking of wheels.
"I believe that's Hosmer." Hannah rose. "It's funny, too, because he said he'd have to stay at the hotel to-night, there was so much settling up at the bank."
It was, however, Hosmer Braley. He paused at the parlor door, a man in the vicinity of thirty, fat in body and carefully clad, with a white starched collar and figured satin tie.
"I didn't want to drive out," he said, at once bland and aggrieved; "but it couldn't be helped. Here's a piece of news for all of you—Phebe is coming home to visit She wrote me to say so, and I only got the letter this evening. Whatever do you suppose took her?"
Hannah at once flushed with excitement—like, Calvin Stammark thought, the parlor lamp with the pink shade, turned up suddenly. An instant vague depression settled over him; Hannah, only the minute before in his arms, seemed to draw away from him, remote and unconcerned by anything but Phebe's extraordinary return. Hosmer made it clear that the event promised nothing but annoyance for him.
"She's coming by to-morrow's stage," he went on, untouched by the sensation his information had wrought in the kitchen; "and it's certain I can't meet her. The bank's sending me into West Virginia about some securities."
