It was nearly midnight when Peneluna sat down by her fireside to think. She had cooked a meal for Larry and carried it to him; she had soothed and fed Jan-an and put her to bed on a cot near the bed upon which old Philander Sniff had once rested, and now Peneluna, with Sniff's old Bible on her knees, felt safe to think and read, and it seemed as if the wings Jan-an had sensed were touching her! The book was marked at passages that had appealed to the old man. Often, after Mary-Clare had read to him and left, thinking that she had made no impression, the trembling, gnarled hand had pencilled the words to be reread in lonely moments. Peneluna had never read the Bible from choice; indeed, her education had been so limited as to be negligible, but lately these pencilled marks had become tremendously significant to her. She was able, somehow, to follow Philander Sniff closely, catching sight of him, now and again, in an illumined way guided by the Bible verses. It was like the blind leading the blind, to be sure, and often it seemed a blind trail, but occasionally Peneluna could pause and take a long breath while she beheld the vision that must have helped her friend upon his isolated way. To-night, however, she was tired and puzzled and worried. She kept reverting to Larry: her eyes only lighted on the printed words before her; her thoughts drifted. What had been going on in the Forest? Why was the storm breaking? But suddenly a verse more heavily marked than the others stayed her: And a highway shall be there, and a way and it shall be called the way of holiness. The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. Over and over Peneluna read and pondered; more and more she puzzled. "Land o' love!" she muttered at last. "Now these here words mean something particular. Seems like they must get into me with their meaning if I hold to 'em long enough. Lord! I don't see how folks can enjoy religion when you have to swallow it without tasting it." But so powerful is suggestion through words, that presently the old woman became hypnotized by them. They sprang out at her like flashes--one by one. "Highway"--she could grasp that. "A way and it shall be called"--these words ran into each other but--the "way" held. "The wayfarer"--well! that was easy; all folks taking to the highway were wayfarers--"though fools shall not err therein." Peneluna, without realizing it, was on The Highway over which all pass, living, seeing, feeling, and storing up experience. In old Philander's quiet memory-haunted room she was pausing and looking back; groping forward--understanding as she had never understood before! At times, catching the meaning of what the present held, her old face quivered as a child's does that is lost, and she would _think back_, holding to some word or look that gave her courage again to fix her eyes ahead.