or some minutes after they met, but
continued their rapid gait, until the end of the corduroy road was in
sight and they felt comparatively safe.

"Wal, that feller certainly ought to be strung up an' walluped, now, fer
sure," remarked Miranda, "an I'd like to help at the wallupin'."

Marcia's overstrung nerves suddenly dissolved into hysterical laughter.
The contrast from the tragic to the ridiculous was too much for her. She
laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, and then she cried in
earnest. Miranda stopped and put her arms about her as gently as a mother
might have done, and smoothed her hair back from the hot cheek, speaking
tenderly:

"There now, you poor pretty little flower. Jest you cry 's hard 's you
want to. I know how good it makes you feel to cry. I've done it many a
time up garret where nobody couldn't hear me. That old Satan, he won't
trouble you fer a good long spell again. When he gets his evil eyes open,
if he ever does, he'll be glad to get out o' these parts or I miss my
guess. Now don't you worry no more. He can't hurt you one mite. An' don't
you think a thing about what he said. He's a great big liar, that's what
he is."

"Miranda, you saved me. Yes, you did. I never can thank you enough. If you
hadn't come and helped me something awful might have happened!" Marcia
shuddered and began to sob convulsively again.

"Nonsense!" said Miranda, pleased. "I didn't do a thing worth mentioning.
Now you jest wipe your eyes and chirk up. We've got to go through town an'
you don't want folks to wonder what's up."

Miranda led Marcia up to the spring whose location had been known to her
all the time of course, and Marcia bathed her eyes and was soon looking
more like herself, though there was a nervous tremor to her lips now and
then. But her companion talked gaily, and tried to keep her mind from
going over the events of the morning.

When they reached the village Miranda suggested they go home by the back
street, slipping through a field of spring wheat and climbing the garden
fence. She had a mind to keep out of her grandmother's sight for a while
longer.

"I might's well be hung for a sheep's a lamb," she remarked, as she slid
in at Marcia's kitchen door in the shadow of the morning-glory vines. "I'm
goin' to stay here a spell an' get you some dinner while you go upstairs
an' lie down. You don't need to go back to your aunt's till near night,
an' you can wait till dusk an' I'll go with you