"blue."

Blue! What a fool--what a common thickheaded fool she had been all her
days! She let the sorrel take his own gait, hooked his bridle-rein and
Beck's upon the saddle-horn, and lifting her arms withdrew the hatpins
and took off the unworthy headgear. For a moment she regarded savagely
the cheap red ribbon which had appeared so beautiful to her; then with
strong brown fingers tore it loose and flung it in the dust of the road,
where Pete shied at it, and the stolid Beck coming on with flapping ears
set hoof upon it.

What vast world forces move with our movements, pluck us uncomprehending
from the station we had struggled for, and make our sorrowful meat of our
attained desires! The stars in their courses pivot and swing on these
subtle attractions, ancient as themselves. Judith Barrier, tearing the
gaudy ribbon from her hat and casting it upon the road under her horse's
feet, stood to learn what the priests of Isis knew thousands of years
ago, that red is the symbol of pleasure and of mere animal comfort, while
blue is the colour of pure reason.

Halfway up the trail they rode into a cloud that rested trembling on the
mountain-side, passed through it and emerged upon fitful sunlight. Near
the top there came a sudden shower which descended with the souse of an
overturned bucket. It won small attention from Judith, but Pete and Beck
resented it in mule fashion, with a laying back of ears and lashing out
of heels. These amenities were exchanged for the most part across the
intervening sorrel nag and his rider, and Selim replied promptly and in
kind, almost unseating Judith.

"You Selim!" she cried jerking the rein. "You feisty Pete! You no-account
Beck! What ails you-all? Cain't you behave?" and once more she lapsed
into dreaming. It was Selim who, wise and old, stopped at Aunt Nancy
Card's gate and gave Judith an opportunity to descend if such were her
preference.

On the porch of the cabin sat a tall, lean, black-eyed old man smoking
his pipe, Jephthah Turrentine himself. Nancy Card, a dry, brown little
sparrow of a woman, occupied a chair opposite him, and negotiated a pipe
quite as elderly and evil-smelling as his own.

The kerchief folded about her neck was notably white; her clean
check-apron rustled with starch; but the half-grey hair crinkling
rebelliously from its loose coil was never confined by anything more
rigorous than a tucking comb. In moments of stress this always slipped
down, and had to be