d as if she were the only creature alive.

A little this side of the river shore there was an old burial place, a
primitive spot enough, where the graves were only marked by rough
stones, and the short, sheep-cropped grass was spread over departed
generations of the farmers and their wives and children. By day it was
in sight of the pine woods and the moving water, and nothing hid it
from the great sky overhead, but now it was like a prison walled about
by the barriers of night. However eagerly the woman had hurried to
this place, and with what purpose she may have sought the river bank,
when she recognized her surroundings she stopped for a moment, swaying
and irresolute. "No, no!" sighed the child plaintively, and she
shuddered, and started forward; then, as her feet stumbled among the
graves, she turned and fled. It no longer seemed solitary, but as if a
legion of ghosts which had been wandering under cover of the dark had
discovered this intruder, and were chasing her and flocking around her
and oppressing her from every side. And as she caught sight of a light
in a far-away farmhouse window, a light which had been shining after
her all the way down to the river, she tried to hurry toward it. The
unnatural strength of terror urged her on; she retraced her steps like
some pursued animal; she remembered, one after another, the fearful
stories she had known of that ancient neighborhood; the child cried,
but she could not answer it. She fell again and again, and at last all
her strength seemed to fail her, her feet refused to carry her farther
and she crept painfully, a few yards at a time, slowly along the
ground. The fear of her superhuman enemies had forsaken her, and her
only desire was to reach the light that shone from the looming shadow
of the house.

At last she was close to it; at last she gave one great sigh, and the
child fell from her grasp; at last she clutched the edge of the worn
doorstep with both hands, and lay still.

II

THE FARM-HOUSE KITCHEN

Indoors there was a cheerful company; the mildness of the evening had
enticed two neighbors of Mrs. Thacher, the mistress of the house, into
taking their walks abroad, and so, with their heads well protected by
large gingham handkerchiefs, they had stepped along the road and up
the lane to spend a social hour or two. John Thacher, their old
neighbor's son, was known to be away serving on a jury in the county
town, and they thought it likely that h