Talking came afterwards.
In the house of Daddy Dan all these things were ordered as they should be.

Not a word was said; not a glance of criticism rested upon her; when her tin plate was cleared she heard no reproofs for eating too greedily, but she was furnished anew from the store of good things on the rock.
In place of conversation, there were other matters to occupy the mind during the meal.

For presently she observed the beautiful head of Satan just behind his master--Satan, who could pass over noisy gravel with the softness of a cat, and now loomed out of the deeper night down the cavern.

Inch by inch, with infinite caution and keenly pricked ears, the head lowered beside Dan, and the quivering, delicate muzzle stole towards a fragment of the "pone." Joan watched breathlessly and then she saw that in spite of the caution of that movement her father knew all about it--just a glint of amusement in the corner of his eyes, just a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth to tell Joan that he was as delighted as a boy playing a trick.

Barely in time to save the morsel of pone, he spoke and the head was dashed up.