and Bouncing Bet that fringed the side yard. The
old hound at the chip pile blinked lazily and raised his head, then
dropped it and slumbered again. Within, the big room was dim and cool.
The high, thin, quavering voices celebrated the love and woe of cruel
Barbara Allen. Judith's dark eyes grew soft and brooding; the nervous
strokes of her dasher measured themselves more and more to the swing of
the old tune.

"I don't see how anybody can be hardhearted thataway with a person they
love," she said softly as the song descended to its doleful end.

The next morning Judith hurried her work that she might get through and
go over to the Bonbright house, there to put in execution her
long-cherished plan of cleaning it and making it fit for Creed's
occupancy that night. Old Dilsey Rust, their tenant, came in to help at
the Turrentine cabin always on occasions like this, or with the churning
or washing; and penetrated with impatience the girl finally left her
assistant in charge of matters and set forth through the woods and across
the fields, the little key which she had carried ever since that morning
in early April in her pocket like a talisman. At last it was to open her
kingdom to her. Behind the bolt that it controlled lay not only the home
of Creed's childhood, but supposably the home of his children. Judith's
heart beat suffocatingly at the thought.

Halfway across she met Huldah Spiller coming up from the Far spring with
a bucket of sulphur water which was held to be good for Jim Cal's
rheumatism.

"Whar ye goin'?" asked Huldah, looking curiously at the broom over
Judith's shoulder, the roll of cloths and the small gourd of soft soap
she carried.

"I'm a-goin' whar I'm a-goin'," returned Judith aggressively. But the
other only smiled. It did not suit her to be offended at that moment.
Instead, "What are you goin' to wear to-night, Judy?" she inquired
vivaciously. It was one of the advantages of waiting on table at a
boarding house in the settlement--pieced out perhaps by the possession of
red hair--that Huldah had the courage to address Judith Barrier as
"Judy."

The hostess of the evening's festivities was half in the mind to pass on
without reply; then her curiosity as to Huldah's costume got the better
of her, and she compromised, with a laconic,

"My white frock--what are you?"

"Don't you know I went down to Hepzibah after you said you was goin' to
have a play-party?" asked Huldah, tossing her head to g