Mr. Whitford was to be at Mrs. Blake’s house at one o’clock in the morning. Starting at that hour, he would be unlikely to meet travellers on the road, and he would get into Winchester well before daylight. He and his passengers were to have an early breakfast with the old Quaker who was a friend of the miller and of Mr. Fairhead. From the Quaker’s house they would take the stage for Martinsburg. If Mrs. Blake chanced to meet an acquaintance on the street or in the stage, it was quite natural that she should be going to Martinsburg on a visit, attended by her mother’s maid.

Nancy was to come over to Mrs. Blake’s about midnight. When all was still at the Mill House, she got up from her pallet, dressed in the dark, and slipped out of the back door, carrying her shoes and stockings in one hand, and in the other an old pillowcase stuffed with her spare clothes and her few belongings.

When she got to the stile, she sat down behind it and put on her shoes. It was the dark of the moon, and anyone crossing the meadow could not easily be recognized. But if she met anyone, the fact that she was wearing her winter shawl and a hat would arouse curiosity. To travel as Mrs. Blake’s lady’s maid, she must be dressed for town. Her hat was an old black turban of Mrs. Colbert’s. Till had put a red feather on it when Nancy accompanied her mistress to Winchester at Easter.

Mrs. Blake was sitting on her doorstep, waiting, and her house was dark. She drew a sigh of relief when she saw a figure come out of the meadow and cross the road. She met Nancy at the gate, took her into the parlour, pulled down the blinds, and lighted a candle.

“Now, Nancy, here’s my old carpet sack. I’m going to give it to you for your own, and you can pack away in it whatever you’ve got in your bundle there. From now on we must look spruce, like we was going visiting. I’m glad you’ve got a feather in your hat. It’s real becoming to you, and it was a good hat in the first place, when Mother got it. I see you’ve brought along one of the old reticules. That will be handy to carry the letters I’ve written out for you to show to the Quaker folks, and maybe to the railroad men, telling how you’re a deserving girl and I stand behind you. But when I give you your money, in Martinsburg, you must put it in your stockings. Never let it off your body.”

“Oh, Miz’ Blake, the reticule ain’t mine! Miss Sapphy give it to me yisterday, with three pairs a-her good silk stockings for me to darn. I did mean to darn ’em today, but some way I jist couldn’t git down to it. I been kind-a flighty in the haid like. I’ll mend ’em as soon as I git there, an’ send ’em back by stage, or somehow.” Nancy was nervously packing the carpetbag as she spoke.

Mrs. Blak............