“There’s where she lived—­this hairy old woman,” said the teacher,—­“up there in that tower.  See her snares in the grass—­four of them?”

He rapped on the stalk of mullen with a stick, peering into the dusty little cavern of silk near the top of it.

“Sure enough!  Here is where she lived; for the house is empty, and there’s living prey in the snares.”

“What a weird old thing!” said Polly.  “Can you tell us more about her?”

“Well, every summer,” said Trove, “a great city grows up in the field.  There are shady streets in it, no wider than a cricket’s back, and millions living in nest and tower and cave and cavern.  Among its people are toilers and idlers, laws and lawbreakers, thieves and highwaymen, grand folk and plain folk.  Here is the home of the greatest criminal in the city of the field.  See! it is between two leaves,—­one serving as roof, the other as floor and portico.  Here is a long cable that comes out of her sitting room and slopes away to the big snare below.  Look at her sheets of silk in the grass.  It’s like a washing that’s been hung out to dry.  From each a slender cord of silk runs to the main cable.  Even a fly’s kick or a stroke of his tiny wing must have gone up the tower and shaken the floor of the old lady, maybe, with a sort of thunder.  Then she ran out and down the cable to rush upon her helpless prey.  She was an arrant highwayman,—­this old lady,—­a creature of craft and violence.  She was no sooner married than she slew her husband—­a timid thing smaller than she—­and ate him at one meal.  You know the ants are a busy people.  This road was probably a thoroughfare for their freight,—­eggs and cattle and wild rice.  I’ll warrant she used to lie and wait for them; and woe to the little traveller if she caught him unawares, for she could nip him in two with a single thrust of her knives.  Then she, would seize the egg he bore and make off with it.  Now the ants are cunning.  They found her downstairs and cut her off from her home and drove her away into the grass jungle.  I’ve no doubt she faced a score of them, but, being a swift climber, with lots of rope in her pocket, was able to get away.  The soldier ants began to beat the jangle.  They separated, content to meet her singly, knowing she would refuse to fight if confronted by more than one.  And you know what happened to her.”

All that afternoon they spent in the city of the field.  The life of the birds in the great maple interested them most of all.  In the evening he played checkers with Polly and told her of school life in the village of Hillsborough—­the work and play of the students.

“Oh!  I do wish I could go,” said she, presently, with a deep sigh.

He thought of the eighty-two dollars in his pocket and longed to tell her all that he was planning for her sake.

Mrs. Vaughn went above stairs with the children.

Then Trove took Polly’s hand.  They looked deeply into each other’s eyes a moment, both smiling.