The people at the table eyed her sadly and whispered, and they also cast frequent glances at Grace Mather bending over the dead baby. Once Captain Isaac Moulton called out to her in his gruff old voice, which he tried to soften, and she answered back, sharply: “Think ye I will leave this child while it breathes, Captain Isaac Moulton? In faith I am the only one of ye all who has regard to it.” But suddenly, when the meal was half over, Grace Mather arose, and gathered up the little dead baby, carried it into Goodwife Sheldon’s bedroom, and was gone some time. “She has lost her wits,” said Eunice Bishop. “Think you not we should follow her? She may do some harm.” “Nay, let her be,” said Goodwife Spear. When at last Grace Mather came out of the bedroom, and they all turned to look at her, her face was stern but quite composed. “I found a little clean linen shift in the chest,” she said to Goodwife Spear, who nodded gravely. Then she sat down at the table and ate. The people, as they ate, cast frequent glances at the barred door and the shuttered windows. The daylight was broad outside, but there was no glimmer of it in the room, and the candles were lighted. They dared not yet remove the barricades, and the muskets were in readiness: the Indians might return. All at once there was a shrill clamor at the door, and men sprang to their muskets. The women clutched each other, panting. “Unbar the door!” shrieked a quavering old voice. “I tell ye, unbar the door! I be nigh frozen a-standing here. Unbar the door! The Indians are gone hours ago.” “’Tis Goody Crane!” cried Eunice Bishop. Captain Isaac Moulton shot back the bolts and opened the door a little way, while the men stood close at his back, and Goody Crane slid in like a swift black shadow out of the daylight. She crouched down close to the fire, trembling and groaning, and the women gave her some hot porridge. “Where have ye been?” demanded Eunice Bishop. “Where they found me not,” replied the old woman, and there was a sudden leer like a light in the gloom of her great hood. She motioned towards the bedroom door. “Goody Sheldon sleeps late this morning, and so doth Mercy,” said she. “I trow she will not dip her candles to-day.” The people looked at each other; a subtler horror than that of the night before shook their spirits. Captain Isaac Moulton towered over the old woman on the hearth. “How knew you Goodwife Sheldon and Mercy were dead?” he asked, sternly. [Illustration: AT ENSIGN SHELDON’S HOUSE THE MORNING AFTER THE MASSACRE]