“I ain’t a-goin’ ter keep it!” cried Elvira. “All the kentry will be tellin’, ennyhow, ez I hev kep’ company with a murderer.” A low, muffled cry escaped from Alethea’s lips. “He kem a-makin’ up ter me till I went an’ turned off Pete Rood, ez war mad ez hops. I can’t hender ’em from knowin’ it. But I ain’t a-goin’ ter hev that thar spiteful leetle beast a-grinnin’ at me ’bout’n it, like he war makin’ game o’ me fur bein’ sech a fool. I’d hev killed it, ’ceptin’ I ’lowed thar hed been enough onnecessary killin’ along o’ Mink Lorey.” “Elviry!” exclaimed Alethea, her voice so tense, so vibrant, so charged with anguish, that, low as it was, it thrilled the stillness as a shriek might hardly do, “what hev Reuben done?” “Oh, ‘Reuben,’ ez ye calls him,” cried the other, sitting upright on the bench of the loom, her dark eyes flashing and dry,—“yer fine Reuben tore down old Griff’s mill, an’ drownded his nevy, Tad, an’ war put in jail, an’ air goin’ ter be tried, an’ hung, I reckon. That’s what ‘Reuben’ done! He’s Mink by name an’ Mink by natur’—an’ oh! I wish I hed never seen him.” She once more leaned on the loom behind her, and bowed her head on her hands. “No!—no!” cried Alethea. She caught her breath in quick gasps; for one moment she seemed losing consciousness. The mountains in the background, the faint stars in the sky, the shadowy roof, the swaying vines, the raccoon in their midst with his grotesque grin, were before her suddenly as if she had just awakened. She had sunk into a chair. “Ye kin call me a liar! So do!” cried Elvira, lifting her head defiantly. “But he went hisself down ter the court-house an’ told it hisself, an’ wanted ter gin his gun an’ mare ef they’d let him off.” She laughed—a dainty little laugh of scorn. “That’s what he ’lowed the idjit war wuth. But my dad ’lows ez the law sets store on the idjit’s life same ez folks ginerally.” Alethea felt as if she were turning to stone. Was it her advice that had led him into danger? Was it her fatal insistence that he should see the right as it was revealed to her? She sprang to her feet, the eager questions crowding to her lips. “Ye shet up, Lethe!” said her step-mother, entertained by the unwonted spectacle of Elvira’s dramatic grief, and not caring to hear again the news of the tragedy already recited. As to Mink, he had only been overtaken by the disasters which must have fallen upon him sooner or later, and he was in many ways a good riddance. This phase was uppermost in her mind when she said, “Ye see now what gals git fur goin’ agin thar elders’ word. I’ll be bound, Elviry, ’twarn’t yer mother’s ch’ice fur ye ter take Mink an’ gin Pete Rood the go-by.” “That it warn’t!” cried the repentant Elvira, with a gush of tears. “I wish I hed bided by her word! I reckon I war born lackin’! I hev been sech a fool!”