vitable reaction came, she was overwhelmed with a sickening sense of
her own weakness. The things which in another sphere had constituted
her strength and shield were now her undoing, and exposed her to
dangers from which they lent her no protection. Not only was this her
position in theory, but the pursuers were already at her heels. As the
day wore on, these dark thoughts took on an added gloom, until, when
the hour to dismiss school arrived, she felt as though she had not a
friend in the world. This feeling was accentuated by a letter which
she had that morning received from her mother, in which Mis' Molly
spoke very highly of Wain, and plainly expressed the hope that her
daughter might like him so well that she would prefer to remain in
Sampson County.

Plato, bright-eyed and alert, was waiting in the school-yard until the
teacher should be ready to start. Having warned away several smaller
children who had hung around after school as though to share his
prerogative of accompanying the teacher, Plato had swung himself into
the low branches of an oak at the edge of the clearing, from which he
was hanging by his legs, head downward. He dropped from this reposeful
attitude when the teacher appeared at the door, and took his place at
her side.

A premonition of impending trouble caused the teacher to hesitate. She
wished that she had kept more of the pupils behind. Something
whispered that danger lurked in the road she customarily followed.
Plato seemed insignificantly small and weak, and she felt miserably
unable to cope with any difficult or untoward situation.

"Plato," she suggested, "I think we'll go round the other way to-night,
if you don't mind."

Visions of Mars Geo'ge disappointed, of a dollar unearned and unspent,
flitted through the narrow brain which some one, with the irony of
ignorance or of knowledge, had mocked with the name of a great
philosopher. Plato was not an untruthful lad, but he seldom had the
opportunity to earn a dollar. His imagination, spurred on by the
instinct of self-interest, rose to the emergency.

"I's feared you mought git snake-bit gwine roun' dat way, Miss Rena.
My brer Jim kill't a water-moccasin down dere yistiddy 'bout ten feet
long."

Rena had a horror of snakes, with which the swamp by which the other
road ran was infested. Snakes were a vivid reality; her presentiment
was probably a mere depression of spirits due to her condition of
nervous exhaustion. A clo