“Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as that,” murmured Wade, politely.

“No, sir, but Miss Walton’s are just as blue as—­as the sky up there between those two little white clouds.  She’s awfully pretty, Mr. Herring.”

“Complexion dark, I suppose.”

“No, sir, not dark at all.  It’s real light.  Some folks say she’s too pale, but I don’t think so.  And sometimes she has just lots of pink in her cheeks, like—­like a doll I have at home.  Folks that think she’s too pale ought to have seen her yesterday afternoon.”

“Why is that?’”

“’Cause she was just pink all over,” answered Zephania.  “I took some eggs up to her house and just when I was coming out she came up on the porch.  She looked like; she’d been running and her face was just as pink as—­as that lamp-mat!”

The object in question was an excruciating magenta, but Wade let it pass.

“Yesterday was rather a warm day for running, too,” observed Wade.

“Yes, sir, and I don’t see what made her run, because she had been in the garden.  Maybe a bee or a wasp—­”

“How did you know she had been in the garden?”

“Why, ’cause she came from there.  She hadn’t ought to run like that in hot weather, and I told her so.  I said ’Miss Eve’—­What, sir?”

“Nothing,” answered Wade, poking industriously at the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe.  “You were saying—­”

“I just told her, ’Miss Eve, you hadn’t ought to overheat yourself like that, ‘cause if you do you’ll have a sunstroke.’  There was a man over at the Center last summer who—­”

“And what did she say?” asked Wade.

“She said she’d remember and not do it again.  And then Miss Mullett came out and I went home.”

“Who’s Miss Mullett, Zephania?”

“She’s Miss Walton’s friend.  They live there together in the Walton house every summer.  Folks say Miss Mullett’s very poor and Miss Walton looks after her.”

“Young, is she?”

“Not so very.  She’s kind of middle-aged, I guess.  She’s real pleasant.  Miss Walton thinks a lot of her.”

“And they’re here only in the summer?”

“Yes, sir.  They come in June and stay until September.  This is the third summer they’ve been here.  Before that the house was empty for a long, long time; just like this one.”

“Very interesting, Zephania.  Thank you.  Now don’t let me keep you from your labors any longer.”

“No, sir, but don’t you want to hear about any one else?”

“Another time, thanks.  We’ll do it by degrees.  If you tell me too much at once I shan’t be able to remember it, you see.”

“All right,” answered Zephania, cheerfully.  “Now I’ll wash up the dishes.”

After she had gone Wade sat for a long while in the green rep rocker, his eyes on the spray of lilac on the table and his unlighted pipe dangling from his mouth.  From the kitchen came a loud clatter of dishes and pans and Zephania’s voice raised in song: