Mrs. Huddlestone had a lamp in her front room, and she came to the window and peeked out when she heard Dan Bale walk up on the porch. Seen through the cheap, rippled glass of a nine-paned window, her face did not seem desiccated by worry but merely drooping in sad folds as if the bony reinforcement behind it were somehow evaporated. She recognized him; he could hear her murmur, “Way a minnuh, Annyull.” She went over to the table where her false teeth lay on a folded napkin, and she fixed them in her mouth before she opened the door.

“I’ve news of Elijah. Good news,” he added quickly.

Her mouth opened and shut; the teeth clicked; her dab of a nose began to show pink in the middle of her china face.

“Lijy isn’t—hurt?”

“No. I’ve seen him.” He came into the room, but she still stood beside the door, holding it open; she might have been expecting Elijah to follow him in, musket and all.

Wine-colored cloth with tiny fleurs-de-lis in its pattern, lay spread across the sewing table, tenting down two sides and spilling over the carpet like a twilled path for some noble to walk upon. The dress-form was a senseless statue beside Mrs. Huddlestone’s chair: its meshed body had been expanded to the fullest—bust, waist and hips—and rich armor of the purplish bombazine had been pinned over its breast.

Elijah’s mother had a silver thimble on her finger, and she kept tapping the thimble with her thumb as she gazed at Dan.

“He got away safely, Mrs. Huddlestone. He and a boy named Fisher—a student. I saw them go.”

“He didn’t get caught by—”

“No. No.” He kept repeating it, sing-song doggerel. “No. Not hurt at all. When the regiment retreated, he and this Fisher were separated from the rest. They got as far as my place. Mrs. Fanning let them take a horse and rig. They drove south before the rebels reached town.”

Water was dulling her eyes behind their spectacles; her eyelids blurred rapidly. She made a little crowing sound as she nodded toward the image beside the table. “That’s for her.”

“That—”

“It’s going to be Mrs. Fanning’s new gown. She wanted me to give her a fit some time before Sunday. I was sewing on it just now. Ever since The Enemies come to town. Yes, ever since—The Enemies. I kept thinking about Lijy. I was—kind of worried. It was real thoughtful of you to come and tell me, Daniel.” The water began to slide over her round cheeks … not tears, he thought. Just thin water, a nervous quantity of it which has been in her eyes all this time, and only overflows because it’s no longer needed there.