doctor's son nor Mary-Clare's husband but I don't want any
tricks. You better not forget that! There's a bed in yonder." The two
had entered the house next door. Jan-an had done good work. The place
was in order and a fire burned in the stove. "I'll fetch food later."
With this Peneluna, followed by Jan-an, a trifle more vague than
usual, left the house.

The rain was already falling and the wind rising--it was the haunted
wind; the bell sounded in the distance sharply. Jan-an paused in the
gathering darkness and spoke tremblingly:

"What's a-going on?" she asked. Peneluna turned and laid her hand on
the girl's shoulder; her face softened--but Jan-an could not see
that.

"Child"--the old voice fell to a whisper--"I ain't going to expect too
much of yer--God Almighty made yer out of a skimpy pattern, I know,
but what He did give yer can be helped along by using it for them yer
love. Child, watch there!"

A long crooked forefinger pointed to the shack, the windows of which
were already darkened--for Larry had drawn the shades!

"Watch early and late there! Keep your mouth shut, except to me.
Jan-an, I can trust yer?"

The girl was growing nervous.

"Yes'm," she blurted suddenly and then fell to weeping. "I keep
feelin' things like wings a-touching of me," she muttered. "I hate the
feelin'. When nothing ain't happened ever, what's the reason it has
ter begin now?"

It was nearly midnight when Peneluna sat down by her fireside to
think. She had cooked a meal for Larry and carried it to him; she had
soothed and fed Jan-an and put her to bed on a cot near the bed upon
which old Philander Sniff had once rested, and now Peneluna, with
Sniff's old Bible on her knees, felt safe to think and read, and it
seemed as if the wings Jan-an had sensed were touching her! The book
was marked at passages that had appealed to the old man. Often, after
Mary-Clare had read to him and left, thinking that she had made no
impression, the trembling, gnarled hand had pencilled the words to be
reread in lonely moments.

Peneluna had never read the Bible from choice; indeed, her education
had been so limited as to be negligible, but lately these pencilled
marks had become tremendously significant to her. She was able,
somehow, to follow Philander Sniff closely, catching sight of him, now
and again, in an illumined way guided by the Bible verses. It was like
the blind leading the blind, to be sure, and often it seemed a blind
trail, but