ompact little budget and slipped them
into her pocket, and as she rose and looked about uncertainly, she
heard her aunt Minerva calling to her from the house that it was high
time to go and drive up the cows.

Aunt Minerva had not bethought herself to summon the girl to dinner.
The whole world seemed surfeited to her, so had dinner occupied her
day. Narcissa herself, under the stress of the abnormal excitements,
felt no lack as she slowly trod the familiar paths in search of the
bovine vagrants.

Her thoughts bore her company, and she was far from home when the
aspect of the reddening sun smote her senses. She stood and watched
the last segment of the vermilion sphere sink down out of sight, and,
as she turned, the October dusk greeted her on every side. The
shadows, how dense in the woods; the valleys, darkling already! Only
on the higher eastern slopes a certain red reflection spoke of the
vanishing day. She looked vainly as yet for some faint silvery
suffusion which might herald the rising of the moon; for it was to be
a bright night. She was glad of the recollection. She had not hitherto
realized it, but she was tired. She would rest for a little while, and
thus refreshed she would be the sooner home. She sat down on a ledge
of the outcropping rock and looked about her. The spot was unfamiliar,
but in the far stretch of the darkening scene she identified many a
well-known landmark. There was the gleaming bend of the river in the
valley, lost presently amidst the foliage of its banks; and here was
an isolated conical peak on a far lower level than the summit of the
range, and known as Thimble Mountain; and nearer still, across a
narrow bight of the Cove, was a bare slope. As she glanced at it she
half rose from her place, for there was the witch-face, twilight on
the grim features, yet with the aid of memory so definitely discerned
that they could hardly have been more distinct by noonday,--a face of
inexplicably sinister omen. "Oh, why did I see it to-day!" she
exclaimed, the presage of ill fortune strong upon her, with that
grisly mask leering at her from across the valley. But the day was
well-nigh gone; only a scant space remained in which to work the evil
intent of fate. She seated herself anew, for in the shadowy labyrinth
of the woods her path could scarcely be found. She must needs wait for
the moon.

She wondered, as she sat and gazed about, how far she might be from
that new dwelling where he lived who