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 a hundred times in daylight! Why should I be afraid of shadows, Charity?"

"But perhaps—that Indian, you know!" began Charity.

"Silly child!" And Mehitable laughed with the superiority of fifteen years. "Father says he was doubtless an Indian runner for the British Army. I'm sure he's far away by now."

"Do not put foolish notions into your sister's head, Charity," interrupted Mistress Condit. She laid her own head back against the settle with a weary little sigh of pain.

"You must stay with Mother, Charity" whispered Mehitable. "Better cover her with the buffalo robe; it grows cold in here without the fire. Good-bye, Mother," she added aloud cheerfully. "I shall not be gone long."

"Promise me to go by the lower road and not by the wood path. 'Tis better!" said Mistress Condit, rousing herself with an effort.

Mehitable hesitated. The valley road, barely wide enough for an ox-cart, following the foot of the First Mountain, was a good twenty minutes longer than the wood path. But reading aright the anxiety on her mother's face, she nodded her head and slipped lightly out the door.

It was indeed lonely along the road. But at last the welcome lights of the Briggses' farmhouse revealed themselves through the gloom, and it was not long then before Mehitable was back in the kitchen she had just quitted an hour or so before.