Marise went out to the pantry with the older woman, feeling with astonishment the floor hard and firm under her feet as usual, the walls upright about her.  Only something at the back of her throat contracted to a knot, relaxed, contracted, with a singular, disagreeable, involuntary regularity.

“You look down sick, Mis’ Crittenden,” said Mrs. Powers with a respectful admiration for the suitability of this appearance.  “And there ain’t nothing surprising that you should.  Did you ever see anybody go off more sudden than Miss Hetty?  Such a good woman she was, too.  It must ha’ gi’n you an awful turn.”  She poured the doughnuts into the jar and, folding the checked cloth, went on, “But I look at it this way.  ’Twas a quick end, and a peaceful end without no pain.  And if you’d seen as many old people drag along for years, as I have, stranglin’ and chokin’ and half-dead, why, you’d feel to be thankful Miss Hetty was spared that.  And you too!”

“Marise,” said Eugenia, coming to the pantry door, “your neighbors wanted me, of course, to bring you all their sympathetic condolence.  Mr. Welles asked me to tell you that he would send all the flowers in his garden to the church for the service tomorrow.  And Mr. Marsh was very anxious to see you today, to arrange about the use of his car in meeting the people who may come on the train tomorrow, to attend the funeral.  He said he would run over here any time today, if you would send Agnes to tell him when you would see him.  He said he wouldn’t leave the house all day, to be ready to come at any time you would let him.”

Mrs. Powers was filled with satisfaction at such conduct.  “Now that’s what I call real neighborly,” she said.  “And both on ’em new to our ways too.  That Mr. Welles is a real nice old man, anyhow. . . .  There!  I call him ‘old’ and I bet he’s younger than I be.  He acts so kind o’ settled down to stay.  But Mr. Marsh don’t act so.  That’s the kind man I like to see, up-and-coming, so you never know what he’s a-goin’ to do next.”

Eugenia waited through this, for some answer, and still waited persistently, her eyes on Marise’s face.

Marise aroused herself.  She must make some comment, of course.  “Please thank them both very much,” she said finally, and turned away to set the jar on a shelf.

“Well, you goin’?” said Mrs. Powers, behind her, evidently to Eugenia.  “Well, good-bye, see you at the funeral tomorrow, I s’pose.”

Marise looked around and caught a silent, graceful salutation of farewell from Eugenia, who disappeared down the hall, the front door closing gently behind her.

Mrs. Powers began again abruptly, “Folks is sayin’ that Frank Warner must ha’ been drinking, but I don’t believe it.  He wa’n’t no drinker.  And where’d he git it, if he was?  It was heedless, that’s what it was.  He always was a heedless critter from a little boy up.  He was the one that skated right ahead into the hole and most drowned him, and he was fooling with his gran’father’s shot-gun when it went off and most blew him to pieces.  ’S a wonder he lived to grow up:  he come so nigh breaking his neck, before this.”