About a week afterward I passed Len’s on my way to Beebread. The house was a hundred yards distant from the main road, with only two gigantic apple-trees intervening. An old man, assisted by Serena, was removing plunder from a strange wagon before the door, but I knew better than to stop and investigate a happening so unusual. If I waited, I should eventually hear all about it; if I inquired, I should hear only the least that could be told me. Not to appear prematurely curious, I kept away from Len’s cabin for two or three days. Then I sauntered over. As I approached I heard screams so eerie, so full of anguish, that I ran staggeringly to the house and fell against the shut door. The windows had sheets pinned over them, and the door was carefully fastened with an inside bar. Years passed, it seemed, before Serena came to the door and made an aperture large enough to admit of her passage onto the porch. “It ain’t nobody but pore little Viny,” she said. “Do you want to come in and see her?” “Can I help you?” I asked faintly. “No, there kain’t anybody do fer her but me. She told me before she took her spell what to do. I’ve got to git back to her now, but me an’ Len’ll be over to see you after supper.” I walked feebly homeward, and waited. Serena and Len came a little late. She explained this by saying: “I have to be sort o’ behind with my supper ever’ other day now. Viny don’t git over her spell till it’s turned five o’clock. You know we’ve been tellin’ you for a long time about Uncle Mace Morgan’s girl, Viny.” So they had, I dimly recalled. “She’s been wantin’ to come an’ live with us ever sence her mother died a year ago, an’ Uncle Mace brought her up the mountain Wednesday, with her bed an’ things.” No longer dimly, but in a flash of apprehensive light, I recalled the story of Viny Morgan. She was a cousin of Serena’s. When a child of thirteen, she had been the victim of a disease that had left her with a withered leg. The youngest of her family, and of an endearing disposition, she had tripped about happily on crutches until she was twenty-one. At that age she was stricken by a malady that produced acute crises of pain. As the years passed the pain increased and the crises came in regular periods every other day. For hours she would struggle in a crazed, semiconscious way, and only her mother could “manage” her at these times. After the mother’s death, the father did what he could for his daughter, while he kept looking about distractedly for some one to relieve him. Serena had the courage and the kindness, but deferred her consent, I think because she and Len in some vague way forefelt my protest.