I know one thing: there couldn't three strange ladies come visitin' to Green River without I should feel as if I'd ought to go an' call an' find out who they was, an' pay 'em a little attention, if I thought anything at all of the folks they was visitin'.

There's considerable more dress here, but I guess, on the whole, it ain't any better a place to live in than Green River." The three women had not had a very lively or pleasant visit in Elliot.

Jane Field, full of grim defiance of her own guilt and misery and of them, was not a successful entertainer of guests.

She fed them as best she could with her scanty resources, and after her house-work was done, took her knitting-work and sat with them in her gloomy sitting-room, while they also kept busy at the little pieces of handiwork they had brought with them.
They talked desperately of Green River and the people there; they told Mrs.Field of this one and that one whom she had known, and in whom she had been interested; but she seemed to have forgotten everybody and everything connected with her old life.
"Ida Starr is goin' to marry the minister in October," Mrs.Babcock had said the day but one after their arrival.

"You know there was some talk about it before you went away, Mis' Field.