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 woman, who, followed by a Negro slave, was coming up the road from the direction of the settlement.

"Fie, fie, Hitty!" she laughed.

"Nay, would ye not like to do the same, Mistress Harrison?" demanded Mehitable boldly.

Mistress Katurah Harrison laughed and blushed at that, for it was well known that she was a lady of high spirit. "Mayhap, Hitty, mayhap!" she admitted, still laughing, passing the girl to go on to her home at the foot of the Mountain on the Northfield road.

How lonely we would have thought the girl's homeward way! Occasional farmhouses broke the monotony of field and forest; but always, upon her left, stretched the swamp, dark and mysterious even in winter. Mehitable plodded along uncomplainingly, however, her thoughts dwelling upon the sad fate of Jemima Condit, her cousin, who had found love and motherhood and death all in one short year.

At last, though, she came out of her reverie with a start to find that the dusk had deepened to darkness, that the candles from Master Ned Tomkins's inn at Freemantown shone out warningly. She hastened her steps a trifle, for she knew her mother would worry at a late return. Besides, she disliked passing any public inn, for there were apt to be loiterers who, seeing her alone, might attempt