she turned and again dumbly surveyed her visitor.

Esther flushed visibly at this reception, and had to choke down the first words that came to her lips. Then she went on better: "I hope you'll excuse my rudeness. I really did forget to rap. I came upon very special business. Is Ab-Mr. Beech at home?" "Won't you sit down?" said M'rye, with a glum effort at civility. "I expect him in presently."

The school-ma'am, displaying some diffidence, seated herself in the nearest chair, and gazed at the wall-paper with intentness. She had never seemed to notice me at all-indeed had spoken of seeing M'rye alone through the window --and I now coughed, and stirred to readjust my poultice, but she did not look my way. M'rye had gone back to her chair by the stove, and taken up her mending again.

"You'd better lay off your things. You won't feel 'em when you go out," she remarked, after an embarrassing period of silence, investing the formal phrases with chilling intention.

Esther made a fumbling motion at the loop of her big mink cape, but did not unfasten it.

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"I—I don't know what you think of me," she began, at last, and then nervously halted.

"Mebbe it's just as well you don't," said M'rye, significantly, darning away with long sweeps of her arm, and bending attentively over her stocking and ball. "I can understand your feeling hard," Esther went on, still eying the sprawling blue figures on the wall, and plucking with her fingers at the furry tails on her cape. "And-I am to blame, some, I can see now-but it didn't seem so, then, to either of us.'

"It ain't no affair of mine," remarked M'rye, when the pause came "but if that's your business with Abner, you won't make much by waitin'. Of course it's nothing to me, one way or t' other." Not another word was exchanged for a long time. From where I sat I could see the girl's lips tremble, as she looked lfastly into the wall. I felt certain rye was darning the same place over again, so furiously did her needle flying.

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All at once she looked up angrily.

Well," she said, in loud, bitter tones: Why not out with what you've come to say, 'n' be done with it? You've heard something, I know!" Esther shook her head. "No, Mrs. Beech," she said, with a piteous quaver in her voice, “I—I haven't heard anything!"

The sound of her own broken utterances seemed to affect her deeply. Her eyes filled with tears, and she hastily got out a handkerchief from her muff, and began drying them. She could not keep from sobbing aloud a little.

M'rye deliberately took another stocking from the heap in the basket, fitted it over the ball, and began a fresh task all without a glance at the weeping girl.

Thus the two women still sat, when Janey came in to lay the table for supper. She lifted the lamp off to spread the cloth, and put it on again; she brought in plates and knives and spoons, and arranged them in their accustomed places-all the while furtively regarding Miss Hagadorn with an incredulous surprise. When she had quite finished she went over to her mistress and, bending low, whispered so that we could all hear quite distinctly: "Is she goin' to stay to supper?"

M'rye hesitated, but Esther lifted her head and put down the handkerchief instantly. "Oh, no!" she said, eagerly: "Don't think of it! I must hurry home as soon as I've seen Mr. Beech." Janey went out with an obvious air of relief.

Presently there was a sound of heavy boots out in the kitchen being thrown on to the floor, and then Abner came in. He halted in the doorway, his massive form seeming to completely fill it, and devoted a moment or so to taking in the novel spectacle of a neighbor under his roof. Then he advanced, walking obliquely till he could see distinctly the face of the visitor. It stands to reason that he must have been surprised, but he gave no sign of it.

"How d' do, Miss," he said, with grave politeness, coming up and offering her his big hand.

Esther rose abruptly, peony-red with pleasurable confusion, and took the

hand stretched out to her. "How d' do, Mr. Beech," she responded with eagerness, "I-I came up to see youa-about something that's very pressing."

"It's blowing up quite a gale outside," the farmer remarked, evidently to gain time the while he scanned her face in a solemn, thoughtful way, noting, I doubt not, the swollen eyelids and stains of tears, and trying to guess her errand. "Shouldn't wonder if we had a foot o' snow before morning."

The school-teacher seemed in doubt how best to begin what she had to say, so that Abner had time, after he lifted his inquiring gaze from her, to run a master's eve over the table.

"Have Janey lay another place!" he said, with authoritative brevity.

As M'rye rose to obey, Esther broke forth: "Oh, no, please don't! Thank you so much, Mr. Beech-but really I can't stop-truly, I mustn't think of it."

The farmer merely nodded a confirmation of his order to M'rye, who hastened out to the kitchen.

"It'll be there for ye, anyway," he said.

"Now set down again, please." It was all as if he was the one who had the news to tell, so naturally did he take command of the situation. The girl seated herself, and the farmer drew up his armchair and planted himself before her, keeping his stockinged feet under the rungs for politeness' sake. "Now, Miss," he began, just making it civilly plain that he preferred not to utter her hated paternal name, "I don't know no more'n a babe unborn what's brought you here. I'm sure, from what I know of ye, that you wouldn't come to this house jest for the sake of comin', or to argy things that can't be, an' mustn't be, argied. In one sense, we ain't friends of yours here, and there's a heap o' things that you an' me don't want to talk about, because they'd only lead to bad feelin', an' so we'll leave 'em all severely alone. But in another way, I've always had a liking for you. You're a smart girl, an' a scholar into the bargain, an' there ain't so many o' that sort knockin' around in these parts that a man like myself, who's fond o' books an' learnin', wants to be unfriendly to them there is. So now you can figure

out pretty well where the chalk line lays, and we'll walk on it."

Esther nodded her head. "Yes, I understand," she remarked, and seemed not to dislike what Abner had said.

"That being so, what is it?" the farmer asked, with his hands on his knees.

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Well, Mr. Beech," the school-teacher began, noting with a swift side-glance that M'rye had returned, and was herself rearranging the table. "I don't think you can have heard it, but some important news has come in during the day. There seems to be different stories, but the gist of them is that a number of the leading Union generals have been discovered to be traitors, and McClellan has been dismissed from his place at the head of the army, and ordered to return to his home in New Jersey under arrest, and they say others are to be treated in the same way, and Fath-some people think it will be a hanging matter, and

Abner waved all this aside with a motion of his hand. "It don't amount to a hill o' beans," he said, placidly. "It's jest spite, because we licked 'em at the elections. Don't you worry your head about that!"

Esther was not reassured. "That isn't all," she went on, nervously. "They say there's been discovered a big conspiracy, with secret sympathizers all over the North."

"Pooh!" commented Abner. "We've heer'n tell o' that before!"

"All over the North," she continued, "with the intention of bringing across infected clothes from Canada, and spreading the smallpox among us, and

The farmer laughed outright; a laugh embittered by contempt. "What cock-'n'-bull story'll be hatched next!" he said. "You don't mean to say youa girl with a head on her shoulders like you-give ear to such tomfoolery as that! Come, now, honest Injin, do you mean to tell me you believed all this?"

"It don't so much matter, Mr. Beech," the girl replied, raising her face to his, and speaking more confidently-"it don't matter at all what I believe. I'm talking of what they believe down at the Corners."

"The Corners be jiggered!" exclaimed Abner, politely, but with emphasis.

Esther rose from the chair. "Mr. Beech," she declared, impressively; "they're coming up here to night! That bonfire of yours made 'em mad. It's no matter how I learned it - it wasn't from father-I don't know that he knows anything about it, but they're coming here! and-and Heaven only knows what they're going to do when they get here!"

The farmer rose also, his huge figure towering above that of the girl, as he looked down at her over his beard. He no longer dissembled his stockingedfeet. After a moment's pause he said: "So that's what you came to tell me, eh?"

The school-ma'am nodded her head. "I couldn't bear not to," she explained, simply.

"Well, I'm obleeged to ye!" Abner remarked, with gravity. Whatever comes of it, I'm obleeged to ye!"

He turned at this, and walked slowly out into the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him. "Pull on your boots again!" we heard him say, presumably to Hurley. In a minute or two he returned, with his own boots on, and bearing over his arm the old doublebarrelled shot-gun which always hung above the kitchen mantel-piece. In his hands he had two shot-flasks, the little tobacco bag full of buckshot, and a powder-horn. He laid these on the open shelf of the bookcase, and, after fitting fresh caps on the nipples put the gun beside them.

"I'd be all the more sot on your stayin' to supper," he remarked, looking again at Esther, "only if there should be any unpleasantness, why, I'd hate like sin to have you mixed up in it. You see how I'm placed."

Esther did not hesitate a moment. She walked over to where M'rye stood by the table replenishing the butterplate. "I'd be very glad indeed to stay, Mr. Beech," she said, with winning frankness, "if I may."

"There's the place laid for you," commented M'rye, impassively. Then, catching her husband's eye, she added the perfunctory assurance, "You're enrely welcome."

Hurley and the girls came in now, and all except me took their seats about the table. Both Abner and the Irishman had their coats on, out of compliment to company. M'rye brought over a thick slice of fresh buttered - bread with brown sugar on it, and a cup of weak tea, and put them beside me on a chair. Then the evening meal went forward, the farmer talking in a fragmentary way about the crops and the weather. Save for an occasional response from our visitor, the rest maintained silence. The Underwood girl could not keep her fearful eyes from the gun lying on the bookcase, and protested that she had no appetite, but Hurley ate vigorously, and had a smile on his wrinkled and swarthy little face.

The wind outside whistled shrilly at the windows, rattling the shutters, and trying its force in explosive blasts which seemed to rock the house on its stone foundations. Once or twice it shook the veranda-door with such violence that the folk at the table instinctively lifted their heads, thinking someone was there.

Then, all at once, above the confusion of the storm's noises, we heard a voice rise, high and clear, crying : "Smoke the damned Copperhead out!

X.

"THAT was Roselle Upman that hoilered," remarked Janey Wilcox, breaking the agitated silence which had fallen upon the supper-table. "You can tell it's him because he's had all his front teeth pulled out."

"I wasn't born in the woods to be skeert by an owl!" replied Abner, with a great show of tranquillity, helping himself to another slice of bread. "Miss, you ain't half makin' out a supper!"

But this bravado could not maintain itself. In another minute there came a loud chorus of angry yells, heightened at its finish by two or three pistolshots. Then Abner pushed back his chair and rose slowly to his feet, and the rest sprang up all around the table.

"Hurley," said the farmer, speaking as deliberately as he knew how, doubtless with the idea of reassuring the

others, "you go out into the kitchen with the women folks, an' bar the woodshed door, an' bring in the axe with you to stan' guard over the kitchen door. I'll look out for this part o' the house myself."

"I want to stay in here with you, Abner," said M'rye.

"No, you go out with the others!" commanded the master with firmness, and so they all filed out with no hint whatever of me. The shadow of the lamp-shade had cut me off altogether from their thoughts.

Perhaps it is not surprising that my recollections of what now ensued should lack definiteness and sequence. The truth is, that my terror at my own predicament, sitting there with no covering for my feet and calves but the burdock leaves and that absurd shawl, swamped everything else in my mind. Still, I do remember some of it.

Abner strode across to the bookcase and took up the gun, his big thumb resting determinedly on the hammers. Then he marched to the door, threw it wide open, and planted himself on the threshold, looking out into the darkness. "What's your business here, whoever you are?" he called out, in deep defiant tones.

"We've come to take you an' Paddy out for a little ride on a rail!" answered the same shrill, mocking voice we had heard at first. Then others took up the hostile chorus. "We've got some pitch a-heatin' round in the back yard!" You won't catch cold; there's plenty o' feathers! "Tell the Irishman here's some more ears for him to chaw on!" "Come out an' take your Copperhead medicine!"

There were yet other cries which the howling wind tore up into inarticulate fragments, and then a scattering volley of cheers, again emphasized by pistolshots. While the crack of these still chilled my blood, a more than usually violent gust swooped round Abner's burly figure, and blew out the lamp.

Terrifying as the first instant of utter darkness was, the second was recognizable as a relief. I at once threw myself out of the chair, and crept along back of the stove to where my stockings and boots had been put to dry.

These I hastened, with much trembling awkwardness, to pull on, taking pains to keep the big square old stove between me and that open veranda door.

'Guess we won't take no ride tonight!" I heard Abner roar out, after the shouting had for the moment died away.

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You got to have one!" came back the original voice. "It's needful for your complaint!"

"I've got somethin' here that'll fit your complaint!" bellowed the farmer, raising his gun. "Take warnin'-the first cuss that sets foot on this stoop, I'll bore a four-inch hole clean through him. I've got squirrel shot, an' I've got buck-shot, an' there's plenty more behind-so take your choice!"

There were a good many derisive answering yells and hoots, and someone again fired a pistol in the air, but nobody offered to come up on the veranda.

Emboldened by this, I stole across the room now to one of the windows, and lifting a corner of the shade, strove to look out. At first there was nothing whatever to be seen in the utter blackness. Then I made out some faint reddish sort of diffused light in the upper air, which barely sufficed to indicate the presence of some score or more dark figures out in the direction of the pump. Evidently they had built a fire around in the back yard, as they said-probably starting it there so that its light might not disclose their identity.

This looked as if they really meant to tar-and-feather Abner and Hurley. The expression was familiar enough to my ears, and, from pictures in stray illustrated weeklies that found their way to the Corners, I had gathered some general notion of the procedure involved. The victim was stripped, I knew, and daubed over with hot melted pitch; then a pillow-case of feathers was emptied over him, and he was forced astride a fence-rail, which the rabble hoisted on their shoulders and ran about with. But my fancy balked at and refused the task of imagining Abner Beech in this humiliating posture. At least it was clear to my mind that a good many fierce and bloody things would happen first.

Apparently this had become clear to

Then

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Well! ain't none o' you a-comin'? he called out at last, with impatient sarcasm. "Thought you was so sot on takin' me out an' havin' some fun with me!" After a brief pause, another taunt occurred to him. 66 Why, even the niggers you're so in love with," he shouted, "they ain't such dod-rotted cowards as you be !"

A general movement was discernible among the shadowy forms outside. I thought for the instant that it meant a swarming attack upon the veranda. But no! suddenly it had grown much lighter, and the mob was moving away toward the rear of the house. The men were shouting things to one another, but the wind for the moment was at such a turbulent pitch that all their words were drowned. The reddened light waxed brighter still-and now there was nobody to be seen at all from the window.

"Hurry here! Mr. Beech! We're all afire!" cried a frightened voice in the room behind me.

It may be guessed how I turned.

The kitchen door was open, and the figure of a woman stood on the threshold, indefinitely black against a strange yellowish-drab half light which framed it. This woman-one knew from the voice that it was Esther Hagadorn -seemed to be wringing her hands.

"Hurry! Hurry!" she cried again, and I could see now that the little passage was full of gray luminous smoke, which was drifting past her into the living-room. Even as I looked, it had half obscured her form, and was rolling in, in waves.

Abner had heard her, and strode across the room now, gun still in hand, into the thick of the smoke, pushing Esther before him and shutting the kitchen door with a bang as he passed through. I put in a terrified minute or two alone in the dark, amazed and half-benumbed by the confused sounds that at first came from the kitchen, and

more sinister silence ensued. there rose a loud crackling noise, like the incessant popping of some giant variety of corn. The door burst open again, and M'rye's tall form seemed literally flung into the room by the sweeping volume of dense smoke which poured in. She pulled the door to behind her-then gave a snarl of excited emotion at seeing me by the dusky reddened radiance which began forcing its way from outside through the holland window shades.

"Light the lamp, you gump!" she commanded, breathlessly, and fell with fierce concentration upon the task of dragging furniture out from the bedroom. I helped her in a frantic, bewil lered fashion, after I had lighted the lamp, which flared and smoked without its shade, as we toiled. M'rye seemed all at once to have the strength of a dozen men. She swung the ponderous chest of drawers out end on end; she fairly lifted the still bigger bookcase, after I had hustled the books out on to the table; she swept off the bedding, slashed the cords, and jerked the bed-posts and side-pieces out of their connecting sockets with furious energy, till it seemed as if both rooms must have been dismantled in less time than I have taken to tell of it.

The crackling overhead had swollen now to a wrathful roar, rising above the gusty voices of the wind. noise, the heat, the smoke, and terror of it all made me sick and faint. I grew dizzy, and did foolish things in an aimless way, fumbling about among the stuff M'rye was hurling forth. Then all at once her darkling, smoke-wrapped figure shot up to an enormous height, the lamp began to go round, and I felt myself with nothing but space under my feet, plunging downward with awful velocity, surrounded by whirling skies full of stars.