"Oh--you air awake," he said cautiously, then, looking about at the others, "an' got company so airly in the mornin'." He glanced from the newcomers to his patient. "You look fine--fine!" he asserted with high satisfaction; then turning over his shoulder, "Come right along in, honey--Creed'll be proud to see ye." He paused on the threshold, reaching back a hand and entered, pulling after him Nancy Card--who was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose pink was in her withered cheeks under the frank grey eyes. She smiled as Judith had never imagined she could smile. But even then the young people scarcely fathomed the situation. "Creed," cried the old man, "I've brung ye the best doctor and nurse there is on the mountings. Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go after her, and I 'lowed I'd make sartain that she'd never run away from me again, so I've jest--we jest----" "Ye ain't married!" cried Judith, sudden light coming in on her. "We air that," announced old Jephthah radiantly. "Well, Jude, I jest had to take him," apologised Nancy. "Here was him with the rheumatics every spring, an' bound and determined that he'd lay out in the bushes deer-huntin' like he done when he was twenty, and me knowin' in reason that a good course of dandelion and boneset, with my liniment well rubbed in, would fix him up--why, I jest _had_ to take him." She looked about her for support, and she got it from an unexpected quarter. "Well, I think you done jest right," piped up Huldah, who had been a silent spectator as long as she could endure it, "I'm mighty glad I've got a new mother-in-law, 'caze I know Pap Turrentine's apt to be well taken keer of in his old days." His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from the red-haired girl to her bridegroom who, in her eyes, was evidently still a sprightly youth. "Huh!" she remarked enigmatically. Then with a sudden change; "Yit whilst we are a-namin' sech, honey, won't you jest run out to my saddle and bring me the spotted caliker poke off'n hit--hit's got my bundle of yarbs in it. I'll put on a drawin' of boneset for you befo' I set down." "All right, Nancy--but I reckon I'll have to clear these folks out of this sick-room fust," responded old Jephthah genially. "We're apt to have too much goin' on for Creed." But as they were marshalled to leave, the noise of a new arrival in the kitchen brought the curious Huldah to the door and she threw it wide to admit Iley, into whose arms she promptly precipitated herself with voluble explanations, which covered her career from the time she left Jim Cal's cabin till that moment. "You an' Wade are wedded? Why couldn't you let a body know?" inquired Iley wrathfully, grasping her by the shoulder, holding her off for somewhat hostile inspection.