At last I mounted the northern rim of the circle of steep hills that kept the place as separate from the rest of the world as a Chinese wall. I met her on the crest. She advanced slowly, looking on the ground, leaning at the hips as do the very aged, but not grotesquely. Her primly made dress and sunbonnet were dull dark blue. With her walking-stick she meditatively knocked the little stones from her path. The staff had a T-shaped head. It was the cane Old Mother Hubbard carries in the toy book. And now she looked up and said with a pleasant start, “Why, good evening, young stranger.” “Good evening, kind lady.” “Where have you been, my son?” “Why, I am following my nose to the end of the world. I have just walked through this enterprising valley.” She looked into the dust and meditated awhile. Then she said: “It’s getting late. No one has let you in?” “No one.” “How about that house by the bridge?” She pointed with her cane. “The lady said she had a sick child.” “Nonsense, nonsense. Do you see that little Ardella by that corner of the ploughed field near the house? She don’t run like a sick child.... Did you ask at the next place, the one that has a green porch?” She pointed again with her cane. “The woman said she had no spare bed.” “But she has. I slept in it last week.... And that last house before you start up this hill?” “The woman said she had to take care of saw-mill hands.” “Did she tell you _that_?” “Yes, ma’am.” The old lady ruminated again, leaning on her stick. At length she said: “Sit down. I want to tell you something.” There we were, Grandmother and newly adopted grandson, on a big sunlit rock. I give only the spirit of her words. She discoursed in that precious mountain dialect, so mediæval, so Shakespearean with its surprising phrases that seem at first the slang of a literary clan, till one learns they are the common property of folk that cannot read. It is a manner of speech all too elusive. Would that I had kept a note-book upon it! But somewhat to this intent she spoke, and in a tone gentler than her words:-- “They thought I would never find out about this, or they would not have treated you so. That woman in the last house is my daughter-in-law. She has only two saw-mill hands, and they’re no trouble. That’s my house anyway. It was my mother’s before me. No one dares turn strangers away when I am there. There’s an empty bed up stairs, and another in the hall.” She turned about and pointed in the direction in which I had been walking. “Just ahead of you, around that clump of trees, is a hospitable family. If they will not take care of you, it is because they have a good excuse. If they cannot take you in, ask no further. Come back to my place, and” (she spoke with a Colonial Dame air) “_I will make you welcome_.” “What sort of mountaineer is this?” I asked myself. “The hospitality is the usual thing, but the grandeur is exotic.”