iving together down the lane.

"Do you know a family named Williams living on the north road beyond the
three corners?" asked the Scotch Preacher.

Instantly a vision of a somewhat dilapidated house, standing not
unpicturesquely among ill-kept fields, leaped to my mind.

"Yes," I said; "but I can't remember any of the family except a gingham
girl with yellow hair. I used to see her on her way to school,''

"A girl!" he said, with a curious note in his voice; "but a woman now."

He paused a moment; then he continued sadly:

"As I grow older it seems a shorter and shorter step between child and
child. David, she has a child of her own,''

"But I didn't know--she isn't--"

"A woods child," said the Scotch Preacher.

I could not find a word to say. I remember the hush of the evening there
in the country road, the soft light fading in the fields. I heard a
whippoorwill calling from the distant woods.

"They made it hard for her," said the Scotch Preacher, "especially her
older brother. About four o'clock this afternoon she ran away, taking
her baby with her. They found a note saying they would never again see
her alive. Her mother says she went toward the river."

I touched up the mare. For a few minutes the Scotch Preacher sat silent,
thinking. Then he said, with a peculiar tone of kindness in his voice.

"She was a child, just a child. When I talked with her yesterday she
was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her
driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it,
Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I--I don't know!' Her reply was not
defiant or remorseful: it was merely explanatory."

He remained silent again for a long time.

"David," he said finally, "I sometimes think we don't know half as much
about human nature as we--we preach. If we did, I think we'd be more
careful in our judgments."

He said it slowly, tentatively: I knew it came straight from his heart.
It was this spirit, more than the title he bore, far more than the
sermons he preached, that made him in reality the minister of our
community. He went about thinking that, after all, he didn't know much,
and that therefore he must be kind.

As I drove up to the bridge, the Scotch Preacher put one hand on the
reins. I stopped the horse on the embankment and we both stepped out.

"She would undoubtedly have come down this road to the river," McAlway
said in a low voice.

It was growing dark. When I