As he glanced in that direction his heart gave a great bound, then
seemed suddenly to stand still. There, close to the verge of the
road, as if she had stepped aside to let him pass, was the figure of
an old woman--a small-sized woman, tremulous and bent. It looked
like old Mrs. Price! As he paused amazed, with starting eyes and
failing limbs, the wind fluttered her shawl and her ample sunbonnet.
This shielded her face and he could not see her features. Her head
seemed to turn toward him. The next instant it nodded at him
familiarly.

To the superstitions mountaineer this suggested that the old woman
had died since he had left her house, and here was her ghost already
vagrant in the woods!

The foolish fellow did not wait to put this fancy to the test. With
a piercing cry he sprang past, and fled like a frightened deer
through the wilderness homeward.

In his own house he hardly felt more secure. He could not rest--he
could not sleep. He stirred the embers with a trembling hand, and
sat shivering over them. His wife, willing enough to believe in
"harnts"* as appearing to other people, was disposed to repudiate
them when they presumed to offer their dubious association to
members of her own family circle.

* Ghosts.

"Dell-law!" she exclaimed scornfully. "I say harnt! Old Mrs.
Price, though spry ter the las', war so proud o' her age an' her
ailments that she wouldn't hev nobody see her walk a step, or stand