The miller, who had declined Betsey’s feast of possum, went out as soon as he had finished his pipe, and turned into the sunken road that led to Solomon Hatch’s.  In the little “best room,” which was opened only for “courtings” or funerals, he found Judy seated under a dim lamp with a basket of darning in her lap.

“I was over at Mrs. Mullen’s this morning,” she explained, “an’ she told me her eyesight was failing, so I offered to do her darnin’.”

Slipping a small round gourd into the toe of a man’s black sock, she examined it attentively, with her needle poised in the lamplight.  Then bending her head slightly sideways, she surveyed her stitches from another angle, while she smoothed the darn with short caressing strokes over the gourd.  He thought how capable and helpful she was, and from the cheerful energy with which she plied her needle, he judged that it gave her pleasure merely to be of use.  What he did not suspect was that her wedding garments had been thrust aside as of less importance than Mrs. Mullen’s basket of darning.  She was just the girl for a farmer’s wife, he told himself as he watched her—­plain and sensible, the kind that would make a good mother and a good manager.  And all the time a voice in the back of his brain was repeating distinctly.  “They say it will end in a marriage—­they say it will end in a marriage.”  But this voice seemed to come from a distance, and to have no connection either with his thought or with his life.  It was independent of his will, and while it was speaking, he went on calmly thinking of Judy’s children and of how well and properly she would bring them up.

“I went over again to look at the steer to-day,” he said, after a moment.  “There’s a Jersey cow, too, I think of buying.”

She nodded, pausing in her work, yet keeping her gaze fixed on the point of her needle.  If he had looked at her darning, he would have seen that it was woven of exquisite and elaborate stitches—­such stitches as went into ecclesiastical embroideries in the Middle Ages.

“They’re the best kind for butter,” she observed, and carefully ran her needle crosswise in and out of the threads.

Conversation was always desultory between them, and when it flagged, as it did now, they could sit for hours in the composed and unembarrassed silence of persons who meet upon the firm basis of mutual assistance in practical matters.  Their relation was founded upon the simple law of racial continuance, which is as indifferent to the individual as it is to the abstract, apotheosis of passion.

“I’m going to Applegate to-morrow to order a new mill-stone,” he said at last, when he rose.  “Is there anything you would like me to get for you?”

She reflected a moment.  “I need a quarter of a yard of braid to finish the green dress I am making.  Could you match it?”

“I’ll try if you’ll give me a sample.”

Laying her work aside for the first time, she hunted amid a number of coloured spools in her basket, and brought to light a bit of silver braid, which she handed to him.