e! What is it?"

"You have been dreaming, Mother Scythia."

"Have I?" said the woman, putting her hands to her forehead and stroking
away the raven locks that over-shadowed it.

And gradually she recovered from her trance and returned to her normal
condition. When Rule was quite sure that she was all right again, he
said:

"Mother Scythia, I am going to Rockhold to see the friends there who
have been kind to me. But I will come back to spend the night with you."

"Well, lad, go. Why should I try to hinder you? You must work out your
destiny and bear your doom," she said, wearily, with her forehead bowed
upon her hands, as if she felt the heavy prophetic cloud still
over-shadowing and oppressing her.

"Mother Scythia, why do you speak so solemnly of me, and I only in my
nineteenth year?" gravely inquired the youth, who, though he had been
accustomed to the weird woman's strange moods and stranger words and
deemed them little less than the betrayals of insanity, yet now felt
unaccountably troubled by them.

"Yes; you are young, but the years fly fast; and I--I see the future in
the present. But go, my boy! enjoy the good of the present--your best
days, lad!--and come back this evening and you shall find your pallet of
sweet boughs and soft blankets ready for you," she said.

Rule stooped and kissed her corrugated forehead and then left the hut.

The sun was setting behind the mountain, which threw a dark shadow over
Scythia's Ledge and Rule's path, as he ran springing from rock to rock
down the precipice to the river's side. It was dark when he reached the
spot. But the lights from the windows of Rockhold on the opposite shore
gleamed out upon the snow with splendid effect.

Every window in the front of the building was shining with light that
streamed out upon the snow; for the shutters had been left unclosed on
purpose, this Christmas night.

Rule crossed the ferry and went, as he had been used to go, to the back
door, opening on the back porch, where, four years before, Cora used to
keep school for her one pupil. He rapped at the door, and Sylvan sprang
up and opened it. He was warmly welcomed, and spent a pleasant evening.
The rest of his vacation was spent in a way equally pleasant, and at
seven a.m., Monday, Rule was at work, type-setting in the _Watch_
office.

On the third of January following that Christmas there were three
departures from Rockhold. Miss Rose Flowers went East to enter upon her
new