Andy opened his lips to answer, when there was a clatter of hoofs
outside. As they all turned to the window, Jephthah Turrentine's big
voice, with a new tone in it, called out to somebody.

"Hold on thar, honey--lemme lift ye down."

"Ain't Uncle Jep goin' to be proud when he sees how well you air?"
Judith, stooping, whispered to Creed. "He went off to get somebody to
he'p nurse you, because he said I done you more harm than good."

"Your Uncle Jep don't know everything," returned Creed softly.

No mountaineer ever knocks on a door, but Jephthah Turrentine made
considerable racket with the latch before he entered the room.

"Oh--you air awake," he said cautiously, then, looking about at the
others, "an' got company so airly in the mornin'." He glanced from the
newcomers to his patient. "You look fine--fine!" he asserted with high
satisfaction; then turning over his shoulder, "Come right along in,
honey--Creed'll be proud to see ye."

He paused on the threshold, reaching back a hand and entered, pulling
after him Nancy Card--who was Nancy Card no longer. A wild-rose pink was
in her withered cheeks under the frank grey eyes. She smiled as Judith
had never imagined she could smile. But even then the young people
scarcely fathomed the situation.

"Creed," cried the old man, "I've brung ye the best doctor and nurse
there is on the mountings. Nancy she run off and left us, and I had to go
after her, and I 'lowed I'd make sartain that she'd never run away from
me again, so I've jest--we jest----"

"Ye ain't married!" cried Judith, sudden light coming in on her.

"We air that," announced old Jephthah radiantly.

"Well, Jude, I jest had to take him," apologised Nancy. "Here was him
with the rheumatics every spring, an' bound and determined that he'd lay
out in the bushes deer-huntin' like he done when he was twenty, and me
knowin' in reason that a good course of dandelion and boneset, with my
liniment well rubbed in, would fix him up--why, I jest _had_ to take
him."

She looked about her for support, and she got it from an unexpected
quarter.

"Well, I think you done jest right," piped up Huldah, who had been a
silent spectator as long as she could endure it, "I'm mighty glad I've
got a new mother-in-law, 'caze I know Pap Turrentine's apt to be well
taken keer of in his old days."

His old days! Nancy looked indignantly from the red-haired girl to her
bridegroom who, in her eyes, was evidently still a sprightly