in' turnip seed, mos'ly. I never hearn nuthin' 'bout'n it
all."

Selwyn threw himself back in his chair, his brow corrugated
impatiently at this renewal of the theme, and in the emergency he even
resorted to the much-mooted point of the thoroughfare.

"I suppose all the family there are dead gone on that road?" he sought
to make talk.

"Dad an' aunt M'nervy don't keer one way nor another, but my sister
air plumb beset fur the jury of view to put it through."

"Why?" Selwyn had a mental vision of some elderly, thrifty mountain
dame with a long head turned toward the enhancement of the values of a
league or so of mountain land.

Hanway, slow and tenacious of impressions, could not so readily rouse
a vital interest in another subject. He still gazed with melancholy
eyes at the fire, and his heart felt heavy and sore.

"Waal," he answered mechanically, "she 'lows she wants ter see the
folks go up an' down, an' up an' down."

Selwyn's blue eyes opened. "Folks?" he asked wonderingly. The rarest
of apparitions on Witch-Face Mountain were "folks."

Hanway roused himself slightly, and raucously cleared his throat to
explain.

"She 'lows thar'll be cornsider'ble passin'. Folks, in the fall o' the
year, mought be a-wagonin' of chestnuts over the mounting an' down ter
Colb'ry; an' thar's the Quarterly Court days; some attends, leastwise
the jestices; an' whenst they hev preachin' in the Cove; an' wunst in
a while thar _mought_ be a camp-meetin'. She sets cornsider'ble store
on lookin' at the folks ez will go up an' down."

There was a swift movement in the pupils of the valley man's eyes. It
was an expression closely correlated to laughter, but the muscles of
his face were still, and he remained decorously grave.

There was some thought in his mind that held him doubtful for a
moment. His craft was cautious of its kind, and his manner was quite
incidental as he said, "And the others of the family?"

"Thar ain't no others," returned Hanway, stolidly unmarking.

"Oh, so you are the eldest?"

"By five year. Narcissa ain't more 'n jes' turned eighteen."

The valley man's face was flushed more deeply still; his brilliant
eyes were elated.

"_Narcissa!_" he cried, with the joy of delighted identification.
"She is the girl, then, that testified at the inquest. _Narcissa!_"

Hanway lifted his head, with a strong look of surly objection on his
heavy features. Selwyn noted it with a glow of growing anger. He felt
that h