While Marian stood enjoying for a few moments the morning hour, she was startled by the sound of rapid footsteps, and then by the sight of a young woman in wild attire, issuing from the grove at the right of the cottage, and flying like a hunted hare toward the house. Marian impulsively opened the gate, and the creature fled in, frantically clapped to the gate, and stood leaning with her back against it, and panting with haste and terror. She was a young and pretty woman--pretty, notwithstanding the wildness of her staring black eyes and the disorder of her long black hair that hung in tangled tresses to her waist. Her head and feet were bare, and her white gown was spotted with green stains of the grass, and torn by briars, as were also her bleeding feet and arms. Marian felt for her the deepest compassion; a mere glance had assured her that the poor, panting, pretty creature was insane. Marian took her hand and gently pressing it, said: "You look very tired and faint--come in and rest yourself and take breakfast with us." The stranger drew away her hand and looked at Marian from head to foot. But in the midst of her scrutiny, she suddenly sprang, glanced around, and trembling violently, grasped the gate for support. It was but the tramping of a colt through the clover that had startled her. "Do not be frightened; there is nothing that can hurt you; you are safe here." "And won't he come?" "Who, poor girl?" "The Destroyer!" "No, poor one, no destroyer comes near us here; see how quiet and peaceable everything is here!" The wanderer slowly shook her head with a cunning, bitter smile, that looked stranger on her fair face than the madness itself had looked, and: "So it was there," she said, "but the Destroyer was at hand, and the thunder of terror and destruction burst upon our quiet--but I forgot--the fair spirit said I was not to think of that--such thoughts would invoke the fiend again," added the poor creature, smoothing her forehead with both hands, and then flinging them wide, as if to dispel and cast away some painful concentration there. "But now come in and lie down on the sofa, and rest, while I make you a cup of coffee," said Marian. But the same expression of cunning came again into the poor creature's face, as she said: "In the house? No, no--no, no! Fanny has learned something. Fanny knows better than to go under roofs--they are traps to catch rabbits! 'Twas in the house the Destroyer found us, and we couldn't get out! No, no! a fair field and no favor and Fanny will outfly the fleetest of them! But not in a house, not in a house!" "Well, then I will bring an easy chair out here for you to rest in--you can sit under the shade, and have a little stand by your side, to eat your breakfast. Come; come nearer to the house," said Marian, taking poor Fanny's hand, and leading her up the walk. They were at the threshold. "Are you Marian?" poor Fanny asked, abruptly. "Yes, that is my name."