“Good morning, mother!  A merry Christmas to you!” said Rule, gayly.

“I hope you have made yourself as comfortable as possible in this place,” said the youth, anxiously.

“Yes, Rule! always as happy and as much at ease as my past will permit.”

“Oh! what is—­what was this terrible past?” inquired the youth—­not for the first time.

“It was, it is, and it ever will be!  This past will be present and future so long as I live on this earth.  And some day, when time and strife and woe have made you strong and hard and stern, I will lift the veil and show you its horrible face!  But not now, my boy! not now!  Come in.”

As the weird woman said this she led the way into the hut, where the rude table stood covered with a coarse white cloth and adorned with two white plates and two pairs of steel knives and forks.  Here the Christmas dinner was eaten, and afterward the two began a close conversation.

“Mother,” said the youth, “I shall have to leave here to-morrow night.  I should go away so much more contented if I could see you living down in the village among people.  Here you are dwelling alone, far from human help if you should require it.  The winter coming on!”

“Rule!  I hate the village!  I hate the haunts of human beings!  I love the wilderness and the wild creatures that are around me!”

“But, mother, if you should be taken ill up here alone!”

“I should get well or die; and it would not in the least matter which.”

“But you might linger, you might suffer.”

“I am used to suffering, and however long I might linger, the end would come at last.  Recovery or death, it would not matter which.”

“Oh, Mother Scythia!” said the youth, in a voice full of distress.

“Rule!  I am as happy here as my past will permit me to be.  I abhor the haunts of the human!  I love the solitude of the wilderness.  The time may come when you too, lad, shall hate the haunts of the human and long for the lair of the lion!  You will rise, Rule!  As sure as flame leaps to the air, you will rise!  The fire within you will kindle into flame!  You will rise!  But—­beware the love of woman and the pride of place!  See!  Listen!”

The face of the weird woman changed—­became ashen gray, her form became rigid, her eyes were fixed, her gaze was afar off in distant space.

“What is it, mother?” anxiously demanded the youth.

“I see your future and the emblem of your future—­a splendid meteor, soaring up from the earth to the sky, filling space with light and glory!  Dazzling a million of eyes, then dropping down, down, down into darkness and nothingness!  That is you!”

“Mother Scythia!” exclaimed the youth, in troubled tones.

The weird woman never turned her head, nor withdrew her fearful, far-off stare into futurity.

“That is you.  You are but a poor apprentice.  But from this year you will soar, and soar, and soar to the zenith of place and power among your fellows!  You will be the blazing meteor of the day!  You will dazzle all eyes by the splendor of your success, and then, ’in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye,’ you will drop into night, and nothingness, and be heard of no more!”