Phoebe's face cleared, and she called, in mellow crescendo: "Oh, Va-ad-NIEE?" Immediately the singing stopped.
"Coming, Aunt Phoebe," answered the voice.
The squaws wrapped themselves afresh in their blankets, passed brown palms smoothingly down their hair from the part in the middle, settled their braids upon their bosoms with true feminine instinct, and waited. They heard her feet crunching softly in the gravel that bordered the pond, but not a head turned that way; for all the sign of life they gave, the three might have been mere effigies of women. They heard a faint scream when she caught sight of them sitting there, and their faces settled into more stolid indifference, adding a hint of antagonism even to the soft eyes of Lucy, the tender, childless one.
"Vadnie, here are some new
