full dark-red skirt, a dark brown waist, and around her neck
was twisted a gray cotton kerchief, faded to a pale ashen hue, the
neutrality of which somehow aided the delicate brilliancy of the
blended roseate and pearly tints of her face. Was this the seer of
ghosts--Dundas marvelled--this the Millicent whose pallid and troubled
phantom already-paced the foot-bridge?

He did not realize that he had drawn up his horse suddenly at the sight
of her, nor did he notice that his host had dismounted, until Roxby was
at the chestnut's head, ready to lead the animal to supper in the barn.
His evident surprise, his preoccupation, were not lost upon Roxby,
however. His hand hesitated on the girth of the chestnut's saddle when
he stood between the two horses in the barn. He had half intended to
disregard the stranger's declination of his invitation, and stable the
creature. Then he shook his head slowly; the mystery that hung about the
new-comer was not reassuring. "A heap o' wuthless cattle 'mongst them
valley men," he said; for the war had been in some sort an education to
his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him ter stay. I
ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent, nohow. Em'ry
Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble well acquainted
with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy an' mammy, an'
both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could tell ye exac'ly
which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from, an' them lean
sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every tone o' his voice. Em'ry never
thunk afore ez I set store on bein' acquainted with him. He 'lowed I
knowed him _too_ well."

He laughed as he glanced through the open door into the darkening
landscape. Horizontal gray clouds were slipping fast across the pearly
spaces of the sky. The yellow stubble gleamed among the brown earth
of the farther field, still striped with its furrows. The black forest
encircled the little cleared space, and a wind was astir among the
tree-tops. A white star gleamed through the broken clapboards of the
roof, the fire still flared under the soap-kettle in the dooryard, and
the silence was suddenly smitten by a high cracked old voice, which told
him that his mother had perceived the dismounted stranger at the gate,
and was graciously welcoming him.

She had come to the door, where the girl still stood, but half withdrawn
in the shadow. Dundas silently bowed as he passed her, fo