devious, checkered paths of life without other guidance than that
which she received from communion with Greek sages and Hebrew
prophets. An utter stranger to fashionable conventionality and
latitudinarian ethics, it was no marvel that the child stared and
shivered when she saw the laws of God vetoed, and was blandly
introduced to murder as Honorable Satisfaction.




CHAPTER II.


Nearly a mile from the small, straggling village of Chattanooga
stood Aaron Hunt's shop, shaded by a grove of oak and chestnut
trees, which grew upon the knoll, where two roads intersected. Like
the majority of blacksmith's shops at country cross-roads, it was a
low, narrow shed, filled with dust and rubbish, with old wheels and
new single-trees, broken plows and dilapidated wagons awaiting
repairs, and at the rear of the shop stood a smaller shed, where an
old gray horse quietly ate his corn and fodder, waiting to carry the
master to his home, two miles distant, as soon as the sun had set
beyond the neighboring mountain. Early in winter, having an unusual
amount of work on hand, Mr. Hunt hurried away from home one morning,
neglecting to take the bucket which contained his dinner, and Edna
was sent to repair the oversight. Accustomed to ramble about the
woods without companionship, she walked leisurely along the rocky
road, swinging the tin bucket in one hand, and pausing now and then
to watch the shy red-birds that flitted like flame-jets in and out
of the trees as she passed. The unbroken repose of earth and sky,