the fence with a fierce, gloating eye,
a panther-like, loping tread, as a beast might patrol a fold before he
plunders it. All the venom of the old feud had risen to the opportunity.
Here was his enemy at his mercy. He knew that it was less than seven
years since the enclosures had been made, acres and acres of tillable
land cleared, the houses built--all achieved which converted the
worthlessness of a wilderness into the sterling values of a farm. He--he,
Roger Purdee--was a rich man for the "mountings," joining his little to
this competence. All the cruelties, all the insults, all the traditions
of the old vendetta came thronging into his mind, as distinctly
presented as if they were a series of hideous pictures; for he was not
used to think in detail, but in the full portrayal of scenes.

The Purdee wrongs were all avenged. This result was so complete, so
baffling, so ruinous temporally, so humiliating spiritually! It was the
fullest replication of revenge for all that had challenged it.

"How Uncle Ezra would hev rej'iced ter hev lived ter see this day!" he
thought, with a pious regret that the dead might not know.

The next moment his attention was suddenly attracted by a movement in
the door-yard. A woman had been hanging out clothes to dry, and she
turned to go in, without seeing the striding figure patrolling the
enclosure. A baby--a small bundle of a red dress--was seated on the pile
of sorghum-cane where the mill had worked in the autumn; the stalks were
broken, and flimsy with frost and decay, and washed by the rains to
a pallid hue, yet more marked in contrast with the brown ground. The
baby's dress made a bright bit of color amidst the dreary tones. As
Purdee caught sight of it he remembered that this was "Grinnell's old
baby," who had been the cause of the renewal of the ancient quarrel,
which had resulted so benignantly for him. "I owe you a good turn, sis,"
he murmured, satirically, glaring at the child as the unconscious mother
lifted her to go in the house. The baby, looking over the maternal
shoulder, encountered the stern eyes staring at her. She stared gravely
too. Then with a bounce and a gurgle she beamed upon him from out the
retirement of her flapping sun-bonnet; she smiled radiantly, and finally
laughed outright, and waved her hands and again bounced beguilingly,
and thus toothlessly coquetting, disappeared within the door.

Before Purdee reached home, flakes of snow, the first of the season