they showed rigid among
the soft enmeshment of the vapor, and again were lost to view..

She rose; there was a new energy in her step; she walked quickly across
the floor and unbarred the door.

The little cabin on the mountain was lost among the clouds. It was
not yet day, but the old woman, with that proclivity to early rising
characteristic of advancing years, was already astir. It was in the
principal room of the cabin that she slept, and it contained another
bed, in which, placed crosswise, were five billet-shaped objects under
the quilts, which when awake identified themselves as Peter Kittredge's
children. She had dressed and uncovered the embers, and put on a few of
the chips which had been spread out on the hearth to dry, and had sat
down in the chimney corner. A timid blaze began to steal up, and again
was quenched, and only the smoke ascended in its form; then the
light flickered out once more, casting a gigantic shadow of her
sun-bonnet--for she had donned it thus early--half upon the brown and
yellow daubed wall, and half upon the dark ceiling, making a specious
stir amidst the peltry and strings of pop-corn hanging motionless
thence.

She sighed heavily once or twice, and with an aged manner, and leaned
her elbows on her knees and gazed contemplatively at the fire. All at
once the ashes were whisked about the hearth as in a sudden draught,
and then were still. In momentary surprise she pushed her chair back,
hesitated, then replaced it, and calmly settled again her elbows on her
knees. Suddenly once more a whisking of the ashes; a cold shiver ran
through her, and she turned to see a hand fumbling at the batten shutter
close by. She stared for a moment as if paralyzed; her spectacles fell
to the floor from her nerveless hand, shattering the lenses on the
hearth. She rose trembling to her feet, and her lips parted as if to cry
out. They emitted no sound, and she turned with a terrified fascination
and looked back. The shutter had opened; there was no glass; the small
square of the window showed the nebulous gray mist without, and defined
upon it was Evelina's head, her dark hair streaming over the red shawl
held about it, her fair oval face pallid and pensive, and with a great
wistfulness upon it; her lustrous dark eyes glittered.

"Mother," her red lips quivered out.

The old crone recognized no treachery in her heart. She laid a warning
finger upon her lips. All the men were asleep.

Evelina stretch