Margeret could not forbear laughing again and was still smiling to herself as she took her way across the hill. The leafless woods stood black and bare against a pale yellow sky, and a little thin new moon hung low behind the treetops. She was surprised to find herself so happy to-night, as though in such a fair world there could not be so much of trouble and sadness as she had thought. Just where her path skirted the forest’s edge she caught sight of a dark figure moving among the black shadows of the tree-trunks, and presently she saw it come out of the wood and go down the lane before her. “Is it Samuel Skerry?” she wondered, as the form, vague in the twilight, turned into the path that led to the shoemaker’s cottage. “But no, it is too tall for the cobbler, it must be that boy who lives with him. What has he been seeking in the wood? The fruits and berries are all gone and he had no gun. I wonder!” Her idle speculations did not, however, last long, for as soon as she reached home and fell to telling her mother of Goody Parsons and the rose, her thoughts of the shoemaker’s apprentice were swept away. She had a visit from him, nevertheless, some weeks later, a visit that surprised her more than the coming of the Governor himself. Early one bitter windy morning, as she knelt shivering on the hearth trying to blow the reluctant fire into flame, there came a knock at the outer door. Upon the threshold, that was banked deep with the first heavy snow, stood the ragged boy who dwelt at Samuel Skerry’s. His teeth were chattering and his fingers trembling with the cold, but his dark blue eyes were shining with excitement. “There has been a fox in your hen house these three nights past,” he said, “and so I arose early this morning and see, here he is.” The body of the red marauder trailed over his arm, its great brush dragging limply in the snow. It had been with helpless dismay that Margeret and her mother had noticed the loss of their fowls, so that this news brought relief indeed. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” she cried. “But I fear your watch has been a bitter cold one. Come in and warm yourself, you must be well-nigh frozen.” The boy hesitated. “My master, the shoemaker—” he began, but Margeret interrupted him, borrowing the stern manner she had seen her mother use on similar occasions. “Come in at once,” she commanded, and when he shyly obeyed she shut the door behind him lest he escape.