Her distrust had communicated itself to her daughters and in countless little ways had coloured their feelings about life.  They grew up under the shadow of being “different,” and formed no close friendships.  Gladys Farmer was the only Frankfort girl who had ever gone much to the mill house.  Nobody was surprised when Caroline Royce, the older daughter, went out to China to be a missionary, or that her mother let her go without a protest.  The Royce women were strange, anyhow, people said; with Carrie gone, they hoped Enid would grow up to be more like other folk.  She dressed well, came to town often in her car, and was always ready to work for the church or the public library.

Besides, in Frankfort, Enid was thought very pretty,—­in itself a humanizing attribute.  She was slender, with a small, well-shaped head, a smooth, pale skin, and large, dark, opaque eyes with heavy lashes.  The long line from the lobe of her ear to the tip of her chin gave her face a certain rigidity, but to the old ladies, who are the best critics in such matters, this meant firmness and dignity.  She moved quickly and gracefully, just brushing things rather than touching them, so that there was a suggestion of flight about her slim figure, of gliding away from her surroundings.  When the Sunday School gave tableaux vivants, Enid was chosen for Nydia, the blind girl of Pompeii, and for the martyr in “Christ or Diana.”  The pallor of her skin, the submissive inclination of her forehead, and her dark, unchanging eyes, made one think of something “early Christian.”

On this May morning when Claude Wheeler came striding up the mill road, Enid was in the yard, standing by a trellis for vines built near the fence, out from under the heavy shade of the trees.  She was raking the earth that had been spaded up the day before, and making furrows in which to drop seeds.  From the turn of the road, by the knotty old willows, Claude saw her pink starched dress and little white sun-bonnet.  He hurried forward.

“Hello, are you farming?” he called as he came up to the fence.

Enid, who was bending over at that moment, rose quickly, but without a start.  “Why, Claude!  I thought you were out West somewhere.  This is a surprise!” She brushed the earth from her hands and gave him her limp white fingers.  Her arms, bare below the elbow, were thin, and looked cold, as if she had put on a summer dress too early.

“I just got back this morning.  I’m walking out home.  What are you planting?”

“Sweet peas.”

“You always have the finest ones in the country.  When I see a bunch of yours at church or anywhere, I always know them.”

“Yes, I’m quite successful with my sweet peas,” she admitted.  “The ground is rich down here, and they get plenty of sun.”

“It isn’t only your sweet peas.  Nobody else has such lilacs or rambler roses, and I expect you have the only wistaria vine in Frankfort county.”