oked some fower or five hundred
year old--now ye favors yerself when I fust kem a-courtin' round the
settlemint."

She hardly knew whether the dull stir in her heart were pleasure or
pain. Her eyes filled with tears, and the irradiated iris shone through
them with a liquid lustre. She could not speak.

Her mother took ephemeral advantage of his softening mood. "Ye useter be
mighty perlite and saaft-spoken in them days, Tobe," she ventured.

"I hed ter be," he admitted, frankly, "'kase thar war sech a many o'
them mealy-mouthed cusses a-waitin' on 'Genie. The kentry 'peared ter me
ter bristle with Luke Todd; he 'minded me o' brumsaidge--_everywhar_ ye
seen his yaller head, ez homely an' ez onwelcome."

"I never wunst gin Luke a thought arter ye tuk ter comin' round the
settlemint," Eugenia said, softly.

"I wisht I hed knowed that then," he replied; "else I wouldn't hev been
so all-fired oneasy an' beset I wasted mo' time a-studyin' 'bout ye an'
Luke Todd 'n ye war both wuth, an' went 'thout my vittles an' sot up o'
nights. Ef I hed spent that time a-moanin' fur my sins an' settin' my
soul at peace, I'd be 'quirin' roun' the throne o' Grace now! Young
folks air powerful fursaken fools."

Somehow her heart was warmer for this allusion. She was more hopeful.
Her resolve grew stronger and stronger as she sat and knitted, and
looked at the fire and saw among the coals all her old life at the
settlement newly aglow. She was remembering now that Luke Todd had been
as wax in her hands. She recalled that when she was married there was a
gleeful "sayin'" going the rounds of the mountain that he had taken to
the woods with grief, and he was heard of no more for weeks. The gossips
relished his despair as the corollary of the happy bridal. He had had no
reproaches for her. He had only looked the other way when they met, and
she had not spoken to him since.

"He set store by my word in them days," she said to herself, her lips
vaguely moving. "I misdoubts ef he hev furgot."

All through the long hours of the winter night she silently canvassed
her plan. The house was still noiseless and dark when she softly opened
the door and softly closed it behind her.

It had ceased to snow, and the sky had cleared. The trees, all the
limbs whitened, were outlined distinctly upon it, and through the boughs
overhead a brilliant star, aloof and splendid, looked coldly down.
Along dark spaces Orion had drawn his glittering blade. Above the