aid of her, and had never
been near her house, but what wouldn't she do for Randall?

* * * * *

Janet never lost much time in carrying out any resolution she made.
The next afternoon she slipped away to visit Granny Thomas. She put on
her longest dress and did her hair up for the first time. Granny must
not think her a child. She rowed herself down the long pond to the row
of golden-brown sand dunes that parted it from the gulf. It was a
wonderful autumn day. There were wild growths and colours and scents
in sweet procession all around the pond. Every curve in it revealed
some little whim of loveliness. On the left bank, in a grove of birch,
was Randall's new house, waiting to be sanctified by love and joy and
birth. Janet loved to be alone thus with the delightful day. She was
sorry when she had walked over the stretch of windy weedy sea fields
and reached Granny's little tumbledown house at the Cove--sorry and a
little frightened as well. But only a little; there was good stuff in
Janet; she lifted the latch boldly and walked in when Granny bade.
Granny was curled up on a stool by her fireplace, and if ever anybody
did look like a witch, she did. She waved her pipe at another stool,
and Janet sat down, gazing a little curiously at Granny, whom she had
never seen at such close quarters before.

Will I look like that when I am very old? she thought, beholding
Granny's wizened, marvellously wrinkled face. I wonder if anybody will
be sorry when you die.

"Staring wasn't thought good manners in my time," said Granny. Then,
as Janet blushed crimson under the rebuke, she added, "Keep red like
that instead o' white, and you won't need no love ointment."

Janet felt a little cold thrill. How did Granny know what she had come
for? Was she a real witch after all? For a moment she wished she
hadn't come. Perhaps it was not right to tamper with the powers of
darkness. Peggy Buchanan was notoriously unhappy. If Janet had known
how to get herself away, she would have gone without asking for
anything.

Then a sound came from the lean-to behind the house.

"S-s-h. I hear the devil grunting like a pig," muttered Granny,
looking very impish.

But Janet smiled a little contemptuously. She knew it was a pig and no
devil. Granny Thomas was only an old fraud. Her awe passed away and
left her cool Sparhallow.

"Can you," she said with her own directness, "make a--a person care
for another person--c