look back. She fell over a root, picked herself
up, and went on, with her knees shaking.

Suddenly she began to cry very loud, as a child does when it sees
comfort, and went on much faster, making for the bridge. As she ran
along the log her arms were out to meet some one.

Calista stared for a couple of seconds, then she raced like a savage
down to the first bend, her red shawl flying behind her.

It lay in a pool on the kitchen floor when Conrad and Hannah came in; it
was the first thing they saw, and their voices stopped as though a hand
had been laid upon their mouths. Mary was lying on the settle and
Calista was doubled up against it with her face hidden.

"What's wrong?" Conrad asked. She said nothing, and when he tried to
lift her she writhed away from him. Hannah ran to Mary. The blankets
were warm, but the small creature was quite cold.

"Now it is time you say what has happened," she said, and Conrad stood
silently by.

Calista sat up, looking deadly sick. The story came out in fragments,
and at the end she bowed her head, shivering and staring at nothing.

"Did she say this before?" Hannah asked.

Calista told wearily, and the old woman listened, a spectator of strange
things to which she alone had the clue.

"Is that all?"

"Ach, yes! I can't remember any more. Now do what you want to do."

Hannah spoke like a judge sentencing a criminal: "So you thought she
told lies and you whipped her--that little thing! Now I tell you
something, Calista Yohe. That night she was born I said to Mary--your
sister Mary!--that once she came on Christmas she would be lucky and see
more than we see, and Mary was glad, and the last thing she said was: 'I
look after her. I take care of her.' And they say one that dies and
leaves something unfinished must come back to finish it up. I guess Mary
knew when to come.

"And you are glad. I don't say you just wished this to her, but you
thought would be fine not to have her around once you got married to
Conrad. She was lucky not to be here till you got a good hold of her.

"You might have thought whether I would let her with you that didn't
want her, to be in the way. But I am old. It is a good thing Mary
fetched her. Now I see to her myself. Don't you dare touch her."

Conrad had been perfectly still, with the face of a man in a nightmare,
but now he went to the shaking woman and lifted her in his arms. Hannah
looked at them for a moment. Then she set a great kettle of