Tired as she was, the girl brought forth from the ancient bureau in her own room beyond, a worn old Bible, and placing it beneath the lamp, sat herself down beside the table to the study of that Great Book which was her classic and her school. Mrs. Allison had retired into the depths of the cabin, from the small room adjoining, Nance could hear the regular breathing of Bud, weary from his labors. For a long time she sat still, her hands lying cupped around the Book, her face pensive with weariness, her eyes fixed unwinking on the yellow flame. Then she turned the thin pages with a reverent hand and at the honeysweet rhythms of the Psalms, stopped and began to read. With David she wandered afar into fields of divine asphodel, was soon lost in a sea of spiritual praise and song. Her young head, haloed with a golden spray in the light of the lamp, was bent above the Bible, her lashes lay like golden circles, sparkling on her cheeks, her lips were sweetly moulded to the words she unconsciously formed as she read. For a long time she pored over the ancient treasure of the Scriptures, and in all truth she was innocent enough, lovely enough to have stirred a heart of stone. It was warm with the breath of spring outside. Window and door stood open and no breeze stirred the cheap white curtain at the sill. Peace was there in the lone homestead by the river, the security that comes with knowledge that all is looked to faithfully. Nance knew that the two huge padlocks on the stout log barn that housed the horses and the two milk cows, were duly fastened, for their keys hung on the wall beside the towel-roller. She knew that the well-board was down, that the box was filled with wood for the early breakfast fire. “‘In Thee, Oh, Lord, do I put my trust,’” she read in silence. “‘Let me never be ashamed, deliver me in Thy righteousness——’” She laid her temples in her palms, her elbows on the table, and her blue eyes followed the printed lines with a rapt delight. Suddenly she sat upright, alert, her face lifted like that of a startled creature of the wild. She had heard no sound. There had been no tremor of the earth to betray a step outside, and yet she felt a presence. She did not look toward the openings, but stared at the wall before her with its rows of shelves behind their screened doors where her mother kept her scoured pans. And then, suddenly, there came a thin, keen whine, a little clear whistle, and a knife stood quivering between her dropped hands, its point imbedded deep in the leaves of the old Bible. For a moment she sat so, while a flush of anger poured up along her throat to flare to the roots of her banded hair.