emark.

"Thanks, Bill," she said quietly. And her last suggestion of
displeasure seemed to pass with her expression of gratitude. "I'm glad
you were here, and"--she smiled--"you can fight. You nearly killed
him." Then, after a pause: "It's been a lesson to me. I--shan't forget
it."

"What have you--done to him?" cried Helen suddenly.

But Kate shook her head.

"Let's talk of something else. There's things far more important
than--him. Anyway, he won't do _that_ again."

She rose from her seat and moved to the window, where she stood
looking out. But she had no interest in what she beheld. She was
thinking moodily of other things.

Bill stirred in his chair. He was glad enough to put the episode
behind him.

"Yes," he said, taking up Kate's remark at once. "There certainly are
troubles enough to go around." He was thinking of his scene of the
previous day with his brother. "But--but what's gone wrong with you,
Kate? What are the more important things?"

"You haven't fallen out with Mrs. Day?" Helen put in quickly.

Kate shook her head.

"No one falls out with Mrs. Day," she said quietly. "Mrs. Day does the
falling out. It isn't only Mrs. Day, it's--it's everybody. I think the
whole village is--is mad." She turned back from the window and
returned to her seat. But she did not sit down. She stood resting her
folded arms on its back and leaned upon it. "They're all mad.
Everybody. I'm mad." She glanced from one to the other, smiling in the
sanest fashion, but behind her smile was obvious anxiety and trouble.
"They've practically decided to cut down the old pine."

Bill sat up. He laughed at the tone of her announcement.

But Helen gasped.

"The old pine?" She had caught some of her sister's alarm.

Kate nodded.

"You can laugh, Bill," she cried. "That's what they're all doing.
They're laughing at--the old superstition. But--it's not a laughing
matter to folks who think right along the lines of the essence of our
human natures, which is superstition. The worst of it is I've brought
it about. I told the meeting about a stupid argument about the
building of the church which Billy and Dy had. Billy wants the tree
for a ridge pole, because the church is disproportionately long. Well,
I told the folks because I thought they wouldn't hear of the tree
being cut. But Mrs. Day rounded on me, and the meeting followed her
like a flock of sheep. Still, I wasn't done by that. I've been
canvassing the village since, a