way back. He used to say the' wa'n't no name older'n hisn since the Bible. I told him 'twar time he got a new one if 'twere that old, but he said he reckoned a name war like whiskey—hit needed a right smart o' age to make hit worth anything."
Thryng laid the antique silver pot on the bed beside the old mother's hand and again took up the small volumes. As he held them, a thought flashed through his mind, yet hardly a thought,—it was more of an illumination,—like a vista suddenly opened through what had seemed an impenetrable, impalpable wall, beyond which lay a joy yet to be, but before unseen. In that instant of time, a vision appeared to him of what life might bring, glorified by a tender light as of red fire seen through a sweet, blue, obscuring mist, and making thus a halo about the one figure of the vision outlined against it, clear and fine.
"'Pears like you find somethin' right interestin' in that book; be you readin' hit?"
"I find a glorious prophecy. Was your first husband born and raised here as you were?"
"Not on this spot; but he was born an' raised like we-uns here in the mountains—ovah th'other side Pisgah. I seed him first when I wa'n't more'n seventeen. He come here fer—I don't rightly recollect what, only he had been deer huntin' an' come late evenin' he drapped in. He had lost his dog, an' he had a bag o' birds, an' he axed maw could she cook 'em an' give him suppah, an' maw, she took to