trotted along in high good humor. This stirring war year, despite her outbursts and railings against it whenever she felt the pinch of it, had been as breath of life to her. Nothing suited her better than to be engaged in some dubious if not actually dangerous enterprise.
At last she reached Newark. It was when she had turned and was following the lane down into the mud of Market Street that she thought suddenly of Mistress Hicks and her poor old mother. And at that moment, as though she had conjured her physically out of that strange night and stranger visit of weeks ago, she beheld the old lady herself stepping briskly along upon her pattens, utterly oblivious, apparently, to the rain and the mud through which she was laboring.
In astonishment Mehitable reined in her horse when she and the old lady met face to face in the narrow lane.
"Art not Mistress Hicks's mother?" exclaimed the girl, staring.
The old lady, brought perforce to a sudden stop, peered back at her composedly. "Aye," she nodded.
"But—but—the night be so rainy and—and"
Mehitable's stammered words died away into puzzled silence. Everything about the old lady was different. As old, as frail as when she had last seen her in Mistress Hicks's kitchen, there were now sense and alertness in the bright old eyes that looked up at her unwaveringly. Those eyes were studying the girl as keenly, as shrewdly as any one could have done.
"What matters rain," answered the old lady contemptuously, "if one finds chances to serve one's country! Art going to the town center, child?"
