Not very many miles from this same pine-wood is the 'blasted heath' of Shakespeare; and this old woman, Crona, but for the look of kindness in her eyes, might well have represented one of the witches in _Macbeth_. A witch? Nay; but despite her high cheek-bones and wrinkled face, despite the gray and elfin locks that escaped from beneath her white 'mutch' or cap, let us rather call her 'wise woman,' for witches--if there be any such creatures--never read the Book of Books. Any age 'twixt seventy and ninety Crona might have been, or even more than that; but Antony could not help noticing that she herself and all her surroundings were wonderfully clean, the fireside tidy, and the delf that stood on shelves or in cupboards shining and spotless. Her clothing, moreover, was immaculate; and Antony, though a mere man, saw that some of her garments were silk and almost new, so that they could not have been cast-offs or misfits from the gentry in the neighbourhood. Indeed, old though she was, she looked aristocratic enough to have repelled any well-meant offers of charity. But humble though the abode, there were several strange, richly inlaid chests in it, and a cupboard or two in the antique that certainly would have been valuable to the connoisseur. Antony loved nature, but he also loved a mystery, and here surely there was one. The mystery was deepened when a remark that the young man made, or a phrase used, in good French led the conversation into that language. But when Antony made a somewhat awkward attempt to learn something of the old lady's history she adroitly turned the conversation. Crona's creamy milk, those new-laid eggs, and the real Scottish scones with freshest of butter, made a supper that a prince would have enjoyed. Crona now heaped more logs and peats on the hearth, for in these far northern regions the early autumn evenings are apt to be chill. The peats blazed merrily but quietly, the logs flamed and fizzed and crackled, the jets of blazing gas therefrom lighting up every corner and cranny of the old-fashioned hut. Fir-logs were they, that had lain buried in moss or morass for thousands of years--had fallen, in fact, before the wintry blast ages before painted and club-armed men roamed the forests all around, fighting single-handed the boars and even bears in which these woods abounded. Frank Antony really felt very happy to-night. The scene was quite to his taste, for he was a somewhat romantic youth, and everything strange and poetic appealed to him. With Lotty, beaming-eyed and rosy with the fire, sitting by Crona's knee listening to old-world tales and the crooning of old ballads, the fox and the cat curled up together in a corner, the curling smoke and cheerful fire, the young man was fascinated. Had London, he wondered, with its so-called life and society, anything to beat this? 'Some one's knocking at the door,' said Lotty, whose hearing was more acute than Crona's.