she had seen in a moment of great peril the vision of the dead face of
her husband uplifted to her through the water.

LANTY FOSTER'S MISTAKE

Lanty Foster was crouching on a low stool before the dying kitchen
fire, the better to get its fading radiance on the book she was reading.
Beyond, through the open window and door, the fire was also slowly
fading from the sky and the mountain ridge whence the sun had dropped
half an hour before. The view was uphill, and the sky-line of the
hill was marked by two or three gibbet-like poles from which, on a
now invisible line between them, depended certain objects--mere black
silhouettes against the sky--which bore weird likeness to human figures.
Absorbed as she was in her book, she nevertheless occasionally cast an
impatient glance in that direction, as the sunlight faded more quickly
than her fire. For the fluttering objects were the "week's wash" which
had to be brought in before night fell and the mountain wind arose. It
was strong at that altitude, and before this had ravished the clothes
from the line, and scattered them along the highroad leading over the
ridge, once even lashing the shy schoolmaster with a pair of Lanty's own
stockings, and blinding the parson with a really tempestuous petticoat.

A whiff of wind down the big-throated chimney stirred the log embers on
the hearth, and the girl jumped to her feet, closing the book with an
impatient snap. She knew her mother's voice would follow. It was hard to
leave her heroine at the crucial moment of receiving an explanation from
a presumed faithless lover, just to climb a hill and take in a lot
of soulless washing, but such are the infelicities of stolen romance
reading. She threw the clothes-basket over her head like a hood, the
handle resting across her bosom and shoulders, and with both her hands
free started out of the cabin. But the darkness had come up from the
valley in one stride after its mountain fashion, had outstripped her,
and she was instantly plunged in it. Still the outline of the ridge
above her was visible, with the white, steadfast stars that were not
there a moment ago, and by that sign she knew she was late. She had to
battle against the rushing wind now, which sung through the inverted
basket over her head and held her back, but with bent shoulders she at
last reached the top of the ridge and the level. Yet here, owing to
the shifting of the lighter background above her, she now found her