"She's my mother. She'll take you
home," he said; and he added, raising his voice to speak to the
old woman: "It's the girl from lawyer Royall's--Mary's girl... you
remember...."
The woman nodded and raised her sad old eyes to Charity's. When Mr.
Miles and Liff clambered into the buggy she went ahead with the lantern
to show them the track they were to follow; then she turned back, and in
silence she and Charity walked away together through the night.
XVII
CHARITY lay on the floor on a mattress, as her dead mother's body had
lain. The room in which she lay was cold and dark and low-ceilinged, and
even poorer and barer than the scene of Mary Hyatt's earthly pilgrimage.
On the other side of the fireless stove Liff Hyatt's mother slept on
a blanket, with two children--her grandchildren, she said--rolled up
against her like sleeping puppies. They had their thin clothes spread
over them, having given the only other blanket to their guest.
Through the small square of glass in the opposite wall Charity saw a
deep funnel of sky, so black, so remote, so palpitating with frosty
stars that her very soul seemed to be sucked into it.
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