he had been shot, and when I held it
toward her came greedily forward and stood close beside the wheels
looking up.

"For you," I indicated, after making a motion toward the plant which had
attracted my attention.

She glanced from me to the herb and nodded with quick appreciation. As
in a flash she seemed to take in the fact that I was a stranger, a city
lady with memories of the country and this humble plant, and hurrying to
it with the same swiftness she had displayed in advancing to the
carriage, she tore off several of the sprays and brought them back to
me, holding out her hand for the money.

I had never seen greater eagerness, and I think even Mr. Simsbury was
astonished at this proof of her poverty or her greed. I was inclined to
think it the latter, for her portly figure was far from looking either
ill-fed or poorly cared for. Her dress was of decent calico, and her
pipe had evidently been lately filled, for I could smell the odor of
tobacco about her. Indeed, as I afterward heard, the good people of X.
had never allowed her to suffer. Yet her fingers closed upon that coin
as if in it she grasped the salvation of her life, and into her eyes
leaped a light that made her look almost young, though she must have
been fully eighty.

"What do you suppose she will do with that?" I asked Mr. Simsbury, as
she turned away in an evident fear I might repent of my bargain.

"Hark!" was his brief response. "She is talking now."

I did hearken, and heard these words fall from her quickly moving lips:

"Seventy; twenty-eight; and now ten."

Jargon; for I had given her twenty-five cents, an amount quite different
from any she had mentioned.

"Seventy!" She was repeating the figures again, this time in a tone of
almost frenzied elation. "Seventy; twenty-eight; and now ten! Won't
Lizzie be surprised! Seventy; twenty--" I heard no more--she had bounded
into her cottage and shut the door.

"Waal, what do you think of her now?" chuckled Mr. Simsbury, touching up
his horse. "She's always like that, saying over numbers, and muttering
about Lizzie. Lizzie was her daughter. Forty years ago she ran off with
a man from Boston, and for thirty-eight years she's been lying in a
Massachusetts grave. But her mother still thinks she is alive and is
coming back. Nothing will ever make her think different. But she's
harmless, perfectly harmless. You needn't be afeard of her."

This, because I cast a look behind me of more than ordin