“Big men have little conceit—­ayes!” said Aunt Deel with a significant glance at me.

The candles had burned low and I was watching the shroud of one of them when there came a rap at the door.  It was unusual for any one to come to our door in the evening and we were a bit startled.  Uncle Peabody opened it and old Kate entered without speaking and nodded to my aunt and uncle and sat down by the fire.  Vividly I remembered the day of the fortune-telling.  The same gentle smile lighted her face as she looked at me.  She held up her hand with four fingers spread above it.

“Ayes,” said Aunt Deel, “there are four perils.”

My aunt rose and went into the but’ry while I sat staring at the ragged old woman.  Her hair was white now and partly covered by a worn and faded bonnet.  Forbidding as she was I did not miss the sweetness in her smile and her blue eyes when she looked at me.  Aunt Deel came with a plate of doughnuts and bread and butter and head cheese and said in a voice full of pity: 

“Poor ol’ Kate—­ayes!  Here’s somethin’ for ye—­ayes!”

She turned to, my uncle and said: 

“Peabody Baynes, what’ll we do—­I’d like to know—­ayes!  She can’t rove all night.”

“I’ll git some blankets an’ make a bed for her, good ’nough for anybody, out in the hired man’s room over the shed,” said my uncle.

He brought the lantern—­a little tower of perforated tin—­and put a lighted candle inside of it.  Then he beckoned to the stranger, who followed him out of the front door with the plate of food in her hands.

“Well I declare!  It’s a long time since she went up this road—­ayes!” said Aunt Deel, yawning as she resumed her chair.

“Who is ol’ Kate?” I asked.

“Oh, just a poor ol’ crazy woman—­wanders all ’round—­ayes!”

“What made her crazy?”

“Oh, I guess somebody misused and deceived her when she was young—­ayes! 
It’s an awful wicked thing to do.  Come, Bart—­go right up to bed now. 
It’s high time—­ayes!”

“I want to wait ’til Uncle Peabody comes back,” said I.

“Why?”

“I—­I’m afraid she’ll do somethin’ to him.”

“Nonsense!  Ol’ Kate is just as harmless as a kitten.  You take your candle and go right up to bed—­this minute—­ayes!”

I went up-stairs with the candle and undressed very slowly and thoughtfully while I listened for the footsteps of my uncle.  I did not get into bed until I heard him come in and blow out his lantern and start up the stairway.  As he undressed he told me how for many years the strange woman had been roving in the roads “up hill and down dale, thousands an’ thousands o’ miles,” and never reaching the end of her journey.

In a moment we heard a low wail above the sound of the breeze that shook the leaves of the old “popple” tree above our roof.

“What’s that?” I whispered.

“I guess it’s ol’ Kate ravin’,” said Uncle Peabody.