that several meals had been
eaten without the ceremony of laying the cloth anew, and that in default
of washing the crockery it had been re-enforced from the shelf so far as
the limited store might admit. Saddles and spinning-wheels, an ox-yoke
and trace-chains, reels and wash-tubs, were incongruously pushed
together in the corners. Only one of the three men in the room made
any effort to reduce the confusion to order. This was the square-faced,
black-bearded, thick-set young fellow who took the candle from the
window, and now advanced with it toward the hearth, holding it at an
angle that caused the flame to swiftly melt the tallow, which dripped
generously upon the floor.

"I hev seen Eveliny do it," he said, excitedly justifying himself. "I
noticed her sot the candle in the winder jes' las' night arter supper."
He glanced about uncertainly, and his patience seemed to give way
suddenly. "Dad-burn the old candle! I dunno _whar_ ter set it," he
cried, desperately, as he flung it from him, and it fell upon the floor
close to the wall.

The dogs lifted their heads to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got
up with the nimbleness of expectation, and, with a prescient gratitude
astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped suddenly,
and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if suspecting
a practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young mountaineer's
face. He threw himself into his chair with a heavy sigh, and desisted
for a time from the unaccustomed duty of clearing away the dishes after
supper.

"An' 'ain't ye got the gumption ter sense what Eveliny sot the candle in
the winder fur?" his brother Timothy demanded, abruptly--"ez a sign ter
that thar durned Abs'lom Kittredge."

The other two men turned their heads and looked at the speaker with a
poignant intensity of interest. "I 'lowed ez much when I seen that light
ez I war a-kemin' home las' night," he continued; "it shined spang down
the slope acrost the ruver an' through all the laurel; it looked plumb
like a star that hed fell ter yearth in that pitch-black night. I dun-no
how I s'picioned it, but ez I stood thar an' gazed I knowed somebody
war a-standin' an' gazin' too on the foot-bredge a mite ahead o' me.
I couldn't see him, an' he couldn't turn back an' pass me, the bredge
bein' too narrer. He war jes obligated ter go on. I hearn him breathe
quick; then--pit-pat, pit-pat, ez he walked straight toward that light.
An' he