ioned
kerchief crossed over her breast, and sometimes, most always, there is a
flower thrust into the lace kerchief. Her hands are white and slender
and blue veined, but they look old, and her voice is sweet and gentle
like her eyes. Yet sometimes--sometimes, when other people who are not
at all wise but very troublesome come before the Wise One and displease
her, a little sharp fire gets into the eyes and a sour little tang into
the voice, and then the Troublesome One wishes she hadn't come!"

They had been walking swiftly toward the village, for to Montgomery
every step of the way was so familiar that he need not look for
landmarks, and his eyes had remained fixed in fascination upon the
girl's radiant face as she spun this fairy-tale without stop or
hesitation. It had been as real to him as to her, but now there came
over him a disappointment even more real. Pausing abruptly on the path,
he burst forth, indignantly:

"Oh, f-f-f-fudge! That Wise Woman's nobody but Aunt Eu-Eu-Eu-nice!"

At the same moment something heavy crashed through the underbrush, and a
man fell sprawling at their feet.

CHAPTER VII.

THE GRIT OF MOSES JONES

An axe flew gleaming through the air and Montgomery vanished, the brass
bound box with him.

Katharine was too startled to move, and stood listening to the
distressing, almost blood-curdling groans which issued from the man's
lips, as, for a moment, he lay face downward before her. Then she
recognized the apparel of Moses Jones and bent over him pityingly.

"Why, Uncle Mose! What is the matter?"

For only answer more groans, which presently began to thrill her with an
unspeakable terror. What made him do that? What had befallen him? Was he
dying, and she alone with him, there in the strange forest? The thought
was torture, and, nerving herself to the task, she laid her hand upon
him, though her repugnance to the act was a fresh torment. It had always
been one of the girl's peculiarities that she could not bear to touch
any ailing thing. She would wait upon people who were ill most
cheerfully, even eagerly, but she hated to come in personal contact with
them. It had been so even in the case of her father whom she idolized,
and had been one of the small items in stepmother's list against her.
But she had heard so much upon the subject then, and of its enormity,
that she had set herself to overcome the failing, since failing it was.
And had poor Moses known it, she would almos