Through the cloud of dust Nancy had caught a glimpse of a pair of merry eyes set deep in a face as brown as the dark shirt the man wore. Turning impulsively in her seat she noticed, with an unexplainable sense of pleasure, that the bare head of the rider was exceptionally well shaped and covered with short curly hair. Then, to her sudden discomfiture, the rider wheeled directly in the road and pulled his horse up short. It was, of course, because he was the first real person she had seen on this big lonely Island that prompted her to nod ever so slightly in response to his friendly wave! Then she turned discreetly back to Webb. "Who is he?" she asked, in what she tried to make an indifferent tone. "Peter Hyde an' as nice a young fellar as ever come to Freedom! Ain't been here much more'n a week and knows everybody. He's old man Judson's hired man and he's goin' to make somethin' of that ten-acre strip of Judson's some day or my name ain't Cyrenus Webb!" "_Judson's hired man_!" cried Nancy, chagrined. What _would_ Anne think of her--to have recognized, even in the slightest degree, the impertinence of this fellow! Her face burned at the thought. "Seems to have a lot of learnin' but he's awful simple like and a hustler. Nobody knows whereabouts he come from--jes' dropped by out of some advertisement old Judson put in the papers up Burlington way." "Tell me more about Freedom," broke in Nancy with dignity. "Is it a very old place?" "Wal, it's jest as old as this Island, though I ain't much on readin' or dates. Folks on Nor' Hero's pretty proud of the hul Island and B'lindy sez as how it's printed that folks settled here long 'fore anyone, exceptin' the Indians, ever heard of Manhattan Island whar New York is. Used to be French first round here but they didn't stay long, and then the English come down 'fore the Revolution and the Leavitts with them, I guess. This here Island's named fur Ethan Allen, you know, and folks sez old Jonathan, thet works up at Happy House, is a connection of his. All the folks round here's related some way or other to them pi'neers and I guess if we hed to put up a fight now we'd do it jest as brave as them Green Mountain Boys! The old smithy's been standin' on the four corners for nigh onto one hundred years and the meetin' house facin' the commons, B'lindy sez, is older than the smithy. And up the Leavitt road thar's a tablet these here Daughters of somethin' or other from Montpelier put up for some pi'neers that died fightin' the Indians while their women folks set off in boats for the mainland. I heard B'lindy tell that at the last social down at the meetin' house. I cal'late some of them pi'neers were Leavitts, at that, fur it want long before that the pretty lady came who hed the name built in the mantel. B'lindy knows--she can tell jes' what day the pretty lady come and the very room she died in. B'lindy was born in the old house and she and Miss Sabriny growed up like sisters though