She sat in her chair, her pale dress crumpled about her body, her back straight and strong, her shoulders high and easily moving. The blue ribbon under her chin adorned her, even her mind, and she felt it upon her as a mark of daintiness, and she drew herself together, feeling the lightness of her body while the gossip flowed uneagerly about this thing and that. Dorine liked to talk with Nellie better than with herself, her friend, Dorine. She went indoors and began to rearrange her hair, going above to her room and letting the confidences flow unhindered. She had learned to pile her hair on her head in low even rolls and she had learned to brush a sheen into the brown strands. Dorine liked to talk with Nellie better than with herself. They had more things to talk of together than they had with her. Her hair rolled into soft pliant coils that lay one beside another and there was the blue line at her throat. She lingered over the hair, preparing it lovingly, thinking of Jonas as she rolled the loops and settled the mass. Jonas had wandered away a little, but when he came back he would weep again at her breast, for he would come, any other way being impossible to think, and when he came he would like this new wave of her hair. She went back to sit again on the chair with her pale dress crumpled over her knees, her body straight and light, and she could feel the hair, like a crest on her head, and feel herself apart from the other two. Presently Dorine went and Ellen went to her evening tasks, milking the cow by the yard gate and gathering home the turkeys. Her hair still kept its graceful poise and the ribbon at her throat set a beauty upon her thinking and upon herself. Dorine was gone. It was not the same between them. Rosie was gone. Elmer was gone; he would never come back. They had all been around her, but now they were gone. She had bound a blue ribbon about her throat, about herself. She had thought it would last forever but it was gone from them, whatever it was, but not from her.

All the outer part of her made itself more beautiful, her hair, her dress, her light body. She walked among the cows with a still grace, light and high and free, standing above the cows. John Bradshaw looked at her, and Mr Al looked, even Ben, but no one spoke except on the business of getting the milk. She turned away the cows, one by one, as she milked them, opening the gate, holding herself aside, milking another, moving slowly but lightly, never hurrying, never changing, every beautiful part functioning. The old way was gone. They had been around her, friends, and she had thought that it would be forever, but they were changed and gone. Perhaps Jonas, even Jonas was gone.