With meek voice to match her face, Lauretta replied, “I hope, my dear, that you will call me Lauretta, and I ask to be known only as Sarah Kendrick’s sister, come to visit after a long absence, with a sad heart and the desire for no more than a tranquil future existence, if it be God’s will.”

Selma’s face, and the faces of the men, softened at this utterance, but the faces of the other women went blank with caution.

“Well!” Sarah said brightly. “Let us all sit down.”

Lauretta moved toward the chair beside Penelope’s, but Nell announced, “That is my chair,” and every man present immediately made as if to lift or drag his own chair to the place Lauretta had indicated she wished to be. She accepted Adam’s offer, apparently at random, although she gave him an intimate, grateful smile and murmured, “I thank you, sir.”

Until they were called in to supper, Lauretta held her audience with a recital of the hazards of her long sea voyage, making something more of a hero of Captain Slocum than she had done in her earlier report to Sarah. Everyone listened to her; there were no separate conversations, and when now and then a question was put, the voice of the questioner was as sober and hushed as that of the narrator.

Edna said, after having kept silent the entire time, “What of California? You have not spoken a word of it.”

Lauretta waited a moment before answering and then said, so quietly the others found themselves leaning forward to catch the words, “It is not a place for gentlewomen, ma’am. I may say more to you at a private time, but innocent young ears are now present.”

With an actor’s instinct she had timed that modest, teasing remark perfectly. Her lips were hardly still when Lotus arrived to say that supper was on the table, and that, “Mama would be obliged if you all come right now while the biscuits are hot.”

They sat down twelve together. Lauretta ate heartily, which gained her a certain respect in Nell’s eyes. Observing her, the others, who had pretty much sated themselves at the heavy noon meal, pitied, forgave, and accepted her—as people will do those who seem to be in need. Not a one slept that night without having last kind thoughts about the poor woman who had come back into their midst that day.

Lauretta’s presence was soon taken for granted in the subsequent heat of harvesting activity that began the day after her arrival. Her behavior was a model of propriety and thoughtfulness. Quelling her natural disposition to step out first and to assume the crown in every situation, she became a follower, a little hesitant, ever polite. She never joined a chatting twosome or group without asking if she might do so.