saw it; then the long rigid surrey with its spare horses rapidly rolled up over the open road to the post-office. He got down and moved diffidently forward, seeing and recognizing Phebe immediately. This was made possible by her resemblance to Hannah; and yet, Calvin added, no two women could be more utterly different.
Phebe Braley had a full figure—she was almost stout—a body of the frankest emphasized curves in a long purple coat with a collar of soiled white fur. A straw hat with the brim caught by a short purple-dyed ostrich feather was pinned to a dead-looking crinkled mass of greenish-gold hair, and her face—the memorable features of Hannah—was loaded with pink powder.
Calvin said: "You must be Phebe Braley. Well, I'm Calvin Stammark. Your father or Hosmer couldn't meet the stage and so they had to let me get you. Where's your bag?"
She adopted at once an air of comfortable familiarity. "I don't remember your name," she said, settling beside him in the buggy.
He told her that he had come to this vicinity after she had gone and that he was about to marry her sister.
"The hell you say!" she replied with cheerful surprise. "Who'd thought Hannah was old enough to have a fellow!"
They were out of the village now and she produced a paper pack of cigarettes from a leather hand bag with a florid gilt top. Flooding her being with smoke she gazed with a shudder at the mountain wall on either hand, the unbroken greenery sweeping to the sky.
"It's worse than I remembered," she confided, resting
