Her mother said no more; but she ceased not to muse on the mystery and power of love. One morning she had started to the cow lot with a milk pail on her arm, when she saw a woman coming slowly through the sparse timber in the rear of the barn, a sunbonnet pulled closely over her head and face. It was very early. Deep Cimmerian shadows still obscured the low country, though the crimson light of dawn was spreading upward from the east, and a fading spectral moon sank slowly behind the western mountains. The morning star hung over the crest of Bush Mountain, heralding the day, and fine elusive mists rolled away from the Cove into the hollows and ravines of the guarding ranges. A ghostly stillness seemed to hang over the world, and Mrs. Harding could hear the dry twigs crackling sharply under the feet of the slowly approaching woman. She went on into the lot and poured some bran and peas into the feeding-trough, and softly called the cow, standing in a distant corner. The stranger walked timidly up to the bars, and pushed back her sunbonnet. She was a small, meek-faced old woman, withered and gray. "Good-mornin’, Mis’ Harding." Mrs. Harding stiffened rigidly, and stared coldly at her, not recognizing her until she had spoken. "You air out early, Mis’ Hurd." "Yes. I don’t know what Hurd would do or say, if he knowed it; but he started to mill ’fore daylight, an’ I crope out, ’lowin’ it ’ud be a good time fer seein’ you." She paused, absently untied her bonnet-strings, passed a trembling hand over her gray hair, then looked wistfully at Mrs. Harding. "Mis’ Harding, has Sarah Betsy heard anything from John lately?" "Heard from John!" with a flash of indignation. "Didn’t I tell Mister Hurd you needn’t be a pest’rin’ ’bout Sarah Betsy? It ’pears to me—" "It’s all ’long o’ me bein’ so troubled about him that I asked," said the old woman, hastily. "One o’ the Brown boys wus down in the Cove t’other day an’ he ’lowed John was sick, an’ yesterday I begged his pa to go over there an’ see ’bout him, but he ’lowed it wusn’t no use; if John thought he could take keer o’ hisself, let him do it. Men fo’ks, Mis’ Harding, hain’t got the feelin’s o’ women. There is such a weight here," laying one hard, withered hand on her breast, "that sometimes it ’pears to me I can’t git my breath. If he hadn’t a-gone off to the ’stillery. Them revenue officers will git him, shore, an’ he’ll die in jail; for he never could bear to be shut up. Why, he always sleeps with the door o’ his room open. I hain’t got nothin’ ag’in’ Sarah Betsy, Mis’ Harding. I’d much ruther John an’ her would marry th’n fer him to go off." Her shrunken lips trembled piteously; some large tears rolled down her face. The frigidness of Mrs. Harding’s attitude relaxed. She moved nearer the bars. "I hain’t nothin’ ag’in’ John, either, but Mister Hurd—"