“I wouldn’t admit it to him. And at first I was not altogether clear about it in my own mind. Indeed, with this other and terrible thing, I can scarcely think soberly about it, as it ought to be thought of. But still--you know, Isabel, we were little children together--and I have never so much as thought of anybody else.” Annie spoke more confidently, as she went on; the notion that there had been malevolence in Isabel’s tone had faded into a foolish fancy: there seemed almost encouragement, sympathy, in her present expression. “I should have lived and died an old maid if he had not come to me. And it comforts me, dear, too, to think that in your great trouble I shall have almost a sister’s right to be with you, and help you bear it.” Isabel did not respond to this tender proffer of solace. She still stood eying her companion reflectively. “You are very certain of being happy, then?” she mused. A sense of discordance touched the girl’s heart again--a something in the restrained, calm tone which seemed to sting. She looked more searchingly into the speaker’s eyes, and read in their blue depths a mystery of meaning which froze and silenced her. While Annie looked, in growing paralysis of thought, Isabel spoke again, slowly: “Your married life at least won’t be deadly dull, as mine was. There must be great possibilities of excitement in living with a man who can propose marriage to a girl--in the moonlight--_on his way home from having murdered his brother!_” ***** Young Samantha Lawton, the member of the tribe who served as maid-of-all-work at the Warren homestead, had a mind at once imaginative and curious. From an upper window she had caught sight of the mournful procession from Tallman’s ravine, winding its way down the hill, in the distance. She stole out from the house, whose bedridden occupant could at best only yell herself hoarse in calling if she chanced to need anything during her absence, and walked up the path by the thorns to the main road, over which the cortege would presently pass. Inside the sharp angle of shade made at this corner, where the thorns aspiringly joined the poplars, there was an old board seat between two trees, the relic of some past and forgotten habit of rendezvous, perhaps whole generations old. Samantha knew of this seat, and stood on it now; from it, she had a clear view of the road in front and, through the tangled thorns, of the meadow-path to the left, while there were branches enough about her to render her practically invisible. From this coign of vantage Samantha saw some things which she had not expected to witness.