While the old negro was speaking the big horse was whirling them through the quiet streets of the village. As Uncle George finished they reached the top of Academy Hill, where Miss Farwell saw the old school building--ghostly and still in the mists that hung about it like a shroud, the tumble-down fence with the gap leading into the weed-grown yard, the grassy knoll and the oak--all wet and sodden now, and--below, the valley--with its homes and fields hidden in the thick fog, suggestive of hidden and mysterious depths. "Is yo' cold, Miss? We's mos dar, now." The nurse had shivered as with a sudden chill. Turning sharply to the north a minute later they entered the square of Old Town where a herd of lean cows were just getting up from their beds to pick a scanty breakfast from the grass that grew where once the farmer folk had tied their teams, and in front of the ruined structure that had once been the principal store of the village, a mother sow grunted to her squealing brood. Long without touch of painter's brush, the few wretched buildings that remained were the color of the mist. To the nurse--like the fog that hid the valley--they suggested cold mysterious depths of life, untouched by any ray of promised sun. And out of that dull gray abyss a woman's voice broke sharply, on the stillness, in a scream of pain. "Dat's her, dat's de po'r gal, now, nurse. Up dare where yo' sees dat light." Uncle George brought the big black to a stand in front of the ancient town-hall and court-house, a two-story, frame building with the stairway on the outside. A group of negroes huddled--with awed faces--at the foot of the stairs drew back as the nurse sprang from the buggy and ran lightly up the shaky old steps. The narrow, dirty hallway was crowded with more negroes. The odor of the place was sickening. Miss Farwell pushed her way through and entered the room where Dr. Harry, assisted by a big black woman, was holding his struggling patient on the bed. The walls and ceiling of the room--stained by the accumulated smoke of years, the rough bare floor, the window--without shade or curtain, the only furniture--a rude table and a chair or two, a little stove set on broken bricks, a handful of battered dishes and cooking utensils, a trunk, and the bed with its ragged quilts and comforts, all cried aloud the old, old familiar cry of bitter poverty. Dr. Harry glanced up as the nurse entered. "Carbolic acid," he said quietly, "but she didn't get quite enough. I managed to give her the antidote and a hypodermic. We better repeat the hypodermic I think." Without a word the nurse took her place at the bedside. When the patient, under the influence of the drug, had grown more quiet, Dr. Harry dismissed the negro woman with a few kind words, and the promise that he would send for her if she could help them in any way. Then when he had sent the others away from the room and the hallway he turned to the nurse.