In Beaver Cove and Elsewhere

They were having a dance over in Beaver Cove, at the Woods'. All the young people of the settlement were there, and many from adjoining settlements. The main room of the cabin had been almost cleared of its meager furniture, and the pine-plank floor creaked under the tread of shuffling feet, while dust and lamp-smoke made the atmosphere thick and close.

But little did the dancers care for that. Bill Eldridge sat by the hearth, playing his fiddle with tireless energy, while a boy added the thumping of two straws to the much-tried fiddle-strings. A party of shy girls huddled in a corner of the room, and the bashful boys hung about the door, and talked loudly.

"Hey, there! git yer partners!" Bill cried to them tauntingly from time to time.

Armindy Hudgins and Elisha Cole were pre-eminently the leaders in the party. They danced together again and again; they sat on the bench in the dooryard; they walked to the spring for a fresh draught of water. Armindy was the coquette of the settlement. In beauty, in spirit, and in daring, no other girl in Beaver Cove could compare with her. She could plow all day and dance half the night without losing her peachy bloom, and it was generally admitted that she could take her choice of the marriageable young men of the settlement. But she laughed at all of them by turns, until her lovers dwindled down to two—Elisha Cole and Ephraim Hurd. They were both desperately in earnest, and their rivalry had almost broken their lifelong friendship. She favored first one and then the other, but to-night she showed such decided preference for Cole that Hurd felt hatred filling his heart. He did not dance at all, but hung about the door, or walked moodily up and down the yard, savage with jealousy. Armindy cast many mocking glances at him, but seemed to feel no pity for his suffering.

In the middle of the evening, while they were yet fresh, she and Elisha danced the "hoe-down." All the others crowded back against the walls, leaving the middle of the room clear, and she and her partner took their places. They were the best dancers in the settlement, and Beaver Cove could boast of some as good as any in all north Georgia. The music struck up, and the two young people began slowly to shuffle their feet, advancing toward each other, then retreating. They moved at first without enthusiasm, gravely and coolly. The music quickened, and their steps with it. Now together, now separate, up and down the room, face to face, advancing, receding, always in that sliding, shuffling step. The girl's face flushed; her lithe figure, clothed in the most primitively fashioned blue print gown, swayed and curved in a thousand graceful movements; her feet, shod in clumsy brogans, moved so swiftly one could scarcely follow them; her yellow hair slipped from its fastenings and fell about her neck and shoulders; her bosom heaved and palpitated. Panting and breathless, Elisha dropped into a seat, his defeat greeted with jeering laughter by the crowd, while Armindy kept the floor. It was a wild, half-savage dance, and my pen refuses to describe it. Nowhere, except in the mountains of north Georgia, have I ever witnessed such a strange performance.

Armindy would not stop until, half-blind and reeling with exhaustion, she darted toward the door, amid the applause of the crowd. Elisha Cole started up to follow her, but Ephraim Hurd reached her side first, and went out into the yard with her.

"You've nearly killed yourself," he said, half-roughly, half-tenderly.

"No such a thing!" she retorted.

"You're out o' breath now."

"I want some water."

"Better sit down on this bench and rest a minute first," he said, attempting to lead her to a seat placed under an apple-tree; but she broke away from him, running swiftly toward the spring bubbling up from a thicket of laurel just beyond the dooryard fence.

"I ain't no baby, Eph'um Hurd!" she cried, gathering up her hair and winding it about her head again, the breeze fanning her flushed cheeks.

The moon was clear and full over Brandreth's Peak, and Ephraim looked up at it, then down on the girl, softened, etherealized by its magic beams.

"What makes you act so, Armindy?"

She broke a spray of laurel bloom and thrust it through the coil of her hair.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about, Eph'um; but I do know I'm waitin' for you to give me that gourd o' water."

He sighed, stooped, and filled the gourd to the brim, and gave it to her. She drank deeply, then threw the remainder out in a glittering shower, and dropped the gourd into the spring.

"Don't go to the house yet," he pleaded, as she turned away.

"I'm tired."

"An' I—I am—you don't keer anything for 'Lishy, do you? Armindy, do you recollect what you said the last time we went to the singin' at Rock Creek?"

She looked at him from under her lashes, half smiled, then said:

"I don't recollect anything perticular."

"I do," he muttered softly, and stepped across the spring-run to her side. "You said—"

"Oh, don't tell me!—I don't mean anything I say!" she hastily cried.

His face clouded with jealous anger again; he laid his hand on her shoulder.

"You'll—make me do somethin' turrible, Armindy, if you don't mind. I love you; don't—don't—treat me like a dog, flingin' crumbs to me one day, an' whippin' me off the next."

She pushed away his hand, for, with all her coquetries, no man dared take any liberties with her, and stepped beyond his reach.

"I ain't done nuthin' to you, Eph'um Hurd. I—"

"You have!" he cried, stamping his feet; "you've made me love you, tell I don't feel as I could live without you; you let me think that you loved—"

"Law! what's the use o' listenin' to a girl's foolishness? Maybe I love you; an', ag'in, maybe I love 'Lishy Cole an' a dozen others. You're too set on havin' your own way," she exclaimed with a loud laugh.

Somebody called to her from the fence.

"That's 'Lishy, now."

"An' you're goin' to him?" said Ephraim with a pale face.

"Yes, I'm goin' to him. He don't bemean me," with a pretense of being aggrieved, but with mocking laughter in her eyes.

She ran up to the fence, and he heard her talking to Elisha about the flowers in her hair.

The party was over. Ephraim Hurd could scarcely contain the violence of his rage when Armindy refused his company home to accept Elisha Cole's. And how hurt he felt, as well as angry! The slight cut to his soul. He watched them as they went away with a party of the neighbors; he listened to their conversation and loud laughter, until the maddening sound of it was lost in the distance; then he mounted his mule and rode swiftly through the Cove down toward the town on the banks of the Cartecay River, where revenue-officers were stationed. A fierce, irresistible temptation had assailed—had conquered him. If he could not have love, he could have revenge. The revenue-men would be glad to know where Elisha Cole concealed his distillery; they would be better pleased to get Elisha himself. Just a hint, scrawled and unsigned, would be sufficient for them, and no one need know who had furnished the information.

It was morning, full daylight, with mists and clouds afloat in the upper rays of the yet invisible sun, when Ephraim Hurd forded Rock Creek on his way home. The jaded mule dipped his steaming nostrils in the cool, fast-flowing stream, drank thirstily, then, coming out, stopped to crop the high, tender grass growing by the roadside. Ephraim let the rein fall loosely on the faithful creature's neck, while his dull eyes wandered over the landscape. He looked haggard; and the chilly, invigorating air made him shiver, instead of infusing fresh life into him. He dismounted to tighten the girth, then leaned his arm on the saddle, seemingly forgetting to pursue his way home. He was tall, and held himself unusually erect for a mountaineer. He had a rather fine face, with soft, dark beard on lip and chin, and his eyes were a deep, serene blue. He did not look like a coward or a traitor, and yet he secretly felt that he could be justly called so; for repentance had followed quickly upon his rash betrayal of his friend.

The night would have seemed only like a bad dream—a nightmare, had he not gone on that journey to Buckhorn, stealing like a thief through the sleeping town, to slip that line of information under the door of the court-room, where it would be found by the revenue-officers the first thing in the morning. Viewed in the clear, cold light of the morning, when jealousy and savage anger had spent themselves, the deed appeared base to the last degree. He passed his hand over his face with a sense of deepest shame. According to the mountaineer's code of honor, a man could not do a meaner, more contemptible thing, than to betray a comrade to the revenue-men. He would fare better as a thief or a vagabond. No wonder Ephraim Hurd felt like hiding his face from the clear accusing light! no wonder he groaned in anguish of soul! He had lost his own self-respect; he had forfeited all right to the trust of his neighbors.

He raised his eyes and looked slowly around again, and, with his mental faculties all quickened by the trouble he was in, he seemed to realize the preciousness of freedom. A perception of the wild, primeval beauty of the world around thrilled him. He looked up at the cloud floating over the deep blue of the sky, tinged with the rose-light of sunrise; at the fog-wreaths curling around the summits of the higher mountains; at the green depths of the forests; at the winding streams, bordered by laurel and rhododendron, rushing in sparkling cascades or lying in clear, silent pools. All the ineffable loveliness and charm of the new world—the new day, penetrated his soul. The deep solitude, broken only by the murmur of the streams, and the liquid, melancholy notes of the hermit thrush, influenced him as it never had before. Think of leaving it all for the court-room, and the prison! Think of languishing within four close walls through sultry days and restless nights!

Pity for the man he had betrayed melted his heart. At this moment how slight seemed the provocation! Elisha Cole had as much right to Armindy's favor as he could claim.

On the upper side of Rock Creek, just under the great cliff rising boldly toward the clouds, a clump of laurel bushes in full bloom hung over the stream, the opening buds a fine delicate pink, the wide-opened flowers faded to dull white. Ephraim's eyes fell on them, and his face contracted with a keen thrill of pain as he remembered Armindy standing by the spring in the moonlight, and fastening a spray of laurel in her hair. Flushed from the dance, radiant with triumph, she had no thought for him—no kind words. Nevertheless, his heart softened toward her; he writhed as he thought of the sorrow he had laid up for her. He had lost account of time in the midst of his bitter reflections, and a sun-ray, striking across his face, startled him. He sprang into the saddle, and rode out of the highway into the settlement road leading through Beaver Cove.

The Hudgins lived on that road, at the foot of Bush Mountain, in an old log-cabin built in the "double-pen" fashion, with an open entry, and in the rear a rude kitchen. Below the house lay a freshly cleared field, the fence skirting the roadside, and as he drew near, Ephraim heard Armindy singing an old baptismal hymn in a high, clear voice, making abrupt little pauses to say "Gee!" or "Haw!" or "Get up there!" to the ox she was driving before the plow.

Last night she danced the "hoe-down" with spirit and grace, the belle of the party; to-day she plowed in her father's corn-field, barefooted, and clothed in a faded homespun gown, singing for the mere joy of existence—of conscious life. She had on a deep sunbonnet, and coarse woolen gloves covered her hands—strong, supple hands, grasping the plow-handles like a man's.

She reached the end of the row just as Ephraim drew near, and looked over the fence at him with a smile and a blush.

"Good mornin', Eph'um," she cried in a conciliatory tone. "You look as if you had been out all night."

"I have."

"Law! what for? At the 'stillery?" Her voice dropped to a softer key.

"No."

She looked attentively at his sad, haggard face, then took off her bonnet and fanned herself.

"Are you mad at me, Eph'um?"

"No; I ain't mad now, Armindy."

"Then what makes you look so—so strange?"

"I was mad last night."

She turned the cool loam of the freshly opened furrow over her naked feet, a faint smile lurking in the corners of her mouth. He saw it, but did not feel angry.

"Good-by, Armindy," he said gently.

"I didn't mean anythin' last night, Eph'um," she said hastily, sobered again by the gravity of his voice and manner.

"I know how it was."

"I don't believe you do. I—" But he rode away while the defensive little speech remained unfinished on her lips.

She looked after him, slowly replacing the bonnet on her head.

"He is mad, or somethin's happened. I never seed him look like he does this mornin'."

She turned the ox into another furrow, but stepped silently behind the plow. She sang no more that morning.

Beaver Cove was really a long, narrow valley, shut in by ranges of high mountains, the serried peaks sharply outlined against the sky on clear days. The mountain-sides were broken into deep ravines, and here and there, near the base, rose sheltered nooks, in which the mountaineers dwelt, cultivating patches and eking out a primitive livelihood with game and fish. It was in one of these retreats that Ephraim Hurd and his mother lived, with all the length and breadth of the valley lying below them, and the mountains overshadowing them above.

As Ephraim turned from the main settlement road into the wilder trail leading up to his house he met met Elisha Cole driving a yoke of oxen. He was whistling a dance-tune, and hailed Ephraim with a cheerful, friendly air, his whole manner betraying a suppressed exultation. Ephraim noticed it quickly, and clenched his hand on the switch he held—that manner said so plainly, "I have won her; I can afford to be friendly with you now."

"Just gittin' home?" he inquired with a jocular air.

"Yes."

"Oh, ho! Which one o' the Wood girls is it, 'Mandy, or Sary Ann?"

Ephraim flushed, but let the rude joke pass.

"Where are you goin'?"

"To the sawmill for a load o' lumber."

"Goin' to build?"

"Yes; in the fall."

"Thinkin' o' marryin', I s'pose?"

"You've hit it plumb on the head, Eph'um. I am thinkin' o' that very thing," he said, with a loud, joyous laugh.

It grated on the miserable Ephraim. He was full of one thought, which he repeated over and over to himself, "To-morrow he'll be in prison, an' Armindy'll be cryin' her eyes out."

"You'll not be at the 'stillery to-night?" he inquired stammeringly.

"Yes, I will. Man alive, what ails you, Eph'um?"

"Nothin'—nothin'. Hadn't you better go to see Armindy?"

Elisha eyed him suspiciously.

"Me an' Armindy understand one another," he said roughly.

Ephraim rode on, his guilty conscience forbidding any more conversation. He longed to give Elisha a hint of approaching danger—to say carelessly, "I hear the raiders'll be out tonight;" but he knew that he could not without betraying the whole truth.

Breakfast awaited him, and his mother sat in the doorway, smoking, when he arrived at home—a homely woman, yellow as saffron, wrinkled as parchment, and without a tooth in her mouth. Her face lighted up at the sight of her son, and she knocked the ashes from her pipe. He had been a good son, a steady boy, and his absence alarmed her.

"Law! but this is a relief!" she cried as he came in after caring for the mule. "I didn't know you 'lowed to stay out all night."

"I didn't, neither, when I left home."

"I was pestered, thinkin' o' the raiders. Anythin' happened to you?"

"Nothin', mother."

"Are you sick?"

"No."

She watched him silently while he ate sparingly of the breakfast. His dull eyes, his haggard face made her anxious. He had no appetite; he plainly did not care to talk. Her suspicions fell on Armindy Hudgins as the cause of his dejection. She began to question him about the party. She mentioned Armindy and Elisha Cole several times, and each time he betrayed some feeling. She felt resentful toward the girl.

"I s'pose Armindy had things her own way las' night?"

"Purty much."

"I don't, for the life o' me, see why you all should be crazy about that girl. Now 'Mandy or Sary Ann Wood, or Betsey—"

"Ugly as crows, all of 'em."

"Well, they may n't be as purty as pictur's, but they are a sight better than Armindy Hudgins," she retorted, indignantly.

"They certainly ain't smarter, mother."

"No; I s'pose they ain't, for work," said Mrs. Hurd, reluctantly; "but principles count for somethin', Eph'um—you'll 'low that."

"Yes; yes," he cried, and hastily left the table. Who could show less principle than he had?

He went out to work, hoeing and thinning the young corn in a field he had cleared on the mountain-side, but the vigor had gone out of him with hope and courage. The sunlight dazed him, and after a while he stopped and leaned upon his hoe, looking down into the valley, his eyes following the cloud-shadows sweeping silently over the fields, blotting out the silvery gleam of Beaver Creek. It was a day of strange, conflicting thoughts. He had never passed through such an experience in all his simple, primitive life. The impressions of the morning lingered in his memory through the heat of the languid noon and the soft decline of the evening. He had brought upon himself a great question of right and wrong—at least it seemed great to him; so great he could scarcely grapple with it, or settle it with wisdom and justice.

After a supper, partaken almost in silence, he took down his gun and carefully loaded it. Mrs. Hurd watched him until he picked up his hat; then she anxiously inquired:

"Where are you goin', Eph'um?"

"Down to the 'stillery."

"It 'pears to me you'd better take some rest."

"I will, later."

"Well, do be keerful an' keep an eye out for the raiders. I've been so oneasy an' pestered to-day that I feel mighty like somethin's goin' to happen."

He went out, but turned on the doorstep to speak to her:

"If anythin' does happen, mother, you'll be prepared for it."

She sighed, and her wrinkled face quivered with emotion.

"I'm always prepared for the worst, an' expectin' it. To have some sort o' dread on your mind 'pears to me to be a part o' life."

Ephraim shouldered his gun, and disappeared in the darkness. He followed the road for a short distance, then turned out into a trail leading over a ridge. It was not easy walking, but the sure-footedness and agility that are a birthright of the mountaineer made it easy for him.

Out of the deep, clear sky overhead the stars shone softly, but afar in the northwest lay great masses of clouds. Constant flashes of lightning shot over them, and through the profound silence came the dull mutterings of thunder. It was a good time for the raiders to be abroad, and the thought quickened Ephraim's steps. He felt sure they would come before moonrise. On the other side of the ridge he traversed a wilder region of country. Half an hour's rapid walking brought him to a small clearing, surrounded by a low rail-fence. In the centre of the clearing stood a cabin, a stream of ruddy light pouring from its open door. It was where the Coles lived. Two fierce hounds greeted Ephraim's approach with loud, hostile barking, and when he called out to them a young woman appeared at the door with a child on her breast—Elisha Cole's sister-in-law.

"Any o' the men folks at home, Mis' Cole?" Ephraim inquired, leaning over the fence.

"No; John an' his pap have gone over to Fannin County, an' 'Lishy's just started to the 'stillery."

"Oh!—just started, you say?"

"Yes; he ain't been gone five minutes. Won't you come in, Eph'um?"

"Not to-night, Mis' Cole. I 'lowed I'd see 'Lishy before he got off."

With a brief good-night he turned away, following a trail leading down through a ravine. It was a wild, lonely way, and so dark that one could scarcely see an inch ahead. But the pathway presently took an upward turn, and the gray starlight penetrated the sparse underbush. He heard the snapping of twigs ahead of him, and whistled softly. Then the sound of stealthy footsteps fell upon his alert ears. He ran forward a few paces, not daring to speak; then he stumbled over the prostrate body of a man.

"'Lishy," he whispered, peering into the upturned face.

"Is it you, Eph'um?"

"Yes; what's the matter?"

"The raiders they tied me; they're lookin' for Jed Bishop."

It was the work of an instant for Ephraim to get out his knife and to cut the thongs binding Elisha's hands and feet. But the prostrate man had not scrambled up before the revenue-officers were down upon them again. Ephraim snatched his gun, and leaped between Elisha and his foes.

"Get out of the way if you can!" he cried to his friend, and fired blindly at the officers.

Early the next morning, as Armindy sat on the entry steps engaged in sewing some patchwork together before the out-door occupations of the day began, a neighbor rode up and hailed her father.

"Heard about the raid last night?"

"No!" exclaimed Mr. Hudgins, hastening to the fence. "Who'd they get?"

"Nobody but Eph'um Hurd."

Armindy dropped her work, her face growing white, her lower lip caught between her clenched teeth.

"It seems they'd caught 'Lishy Cole, an' was lookin' for Jed Bishop, when Eph'um come up an' set 'Lishy free again. He hadn't more'n done it when up come the raiders, an' 'Lishy says Eph'um fit like old Satan hisself, shootin' at 'em tell 'Lishy cleared out."

"Well, well! that does beat all! He'd better 'a' looked out for hisself."

"That's what I say, an' he with his ma to look after. He wounded one o' the officers, an' it's bound to go hard with him. You needn't look so skeered, Armindy"—raising his voice and looking over at the girl, "'Lishy's safe."

"Oh, yes; 'Lishy's safe. I'm only thinkin' o' what might 'a' happened to him." She laughed loudly, then gathered up her work and rushed into the house.

With slow, uncertain steps a man walked along the settlement road through Beaver Cove. His clothes hung loosely from his slightly stooping shoulders; he leaned on a stick. All about him were the joyful influences of spring. The mountains were clothed in palest green, and every stream could boast its share of laurel and rhododendron abloom along its banks. The man drew in deep breaths of the fine air; his eyes wandered lingeringly over scenes familiar, yet long unvisited. Once he stooped and drank from a clear, shallow stream purling along the road, and, drawing his sleeve across his mouth, muttered softly:

"Ah, that's good. I ain't drunk nothin' like it in more'n four years."

He sat down on a fallen tree rotting on the roadside, to rest a few minutes. A market-wagon, white-covered and drawn by a yoke of sleek oxen, rumbled down the hill. In the driver the wayfarer recognized an old neighbor.

"Howdy, Mr. Davis?"

Davis stared, then leaped from the wagon.

"Why—why—it's Eph'um Hurd, ain't it?"

"What's left o' him," said Ephraim, rising, and shaking hands with his old friend.

"Well, you do look used up an' peaked."

"I've been sick."

"An' your hair is gray."

"It's the prison life done it."

"You've been through a good deal, I take it," in a tone of compassion.

"I don't want to think o' it any more if I can help it!" Ephraim exclaimed. "They didn't treat me so bad, but—oh, I thought it would take the soul out o' me!"

Davis shook his head sympathetically.

Ephraim's face sank on his breast for a moment. There were some questions he longed, yet dreaded, to ask. At last he plucked up courage.

"How—how is mother?"

"Purty well."

"'Lishy Cole is married, is he?"

"Yes; he married more 'n two years ago."

Of course he had expected that answer, but it caused his thin, worn face to twitch and contract with pain. He hastily picked up his stick.

"I—I'd better be gittin' on."

"Your ma's moved down to the Wood place," his neighbor called after him as he started up the road. "The Woods moved to Fannin County last year, you know."

"Is that so?" said Ephraim, but without halting again.

Married! Yes, why should they not marry? It was for that he had saved Elisha Cole. He had known it from the night of the dance, had clearly foreseen it all, that morning he stopped at Rock Creek—facing the awakening world and his own conscience. He had struggled for resignation during his prison life, but never had he been able to think of Armindy sitting by Elisha Cole's fireside—Elisha Cole's wife—without the fiercest pang of jealous anguish.

He sat down again, trembling with exhaustion, and bared his throbbing head to the cool breeze. He looked at his long, thin hands, stroked his face, feeling the hollows in his cheeks and under his eyes. He would never get back his youth and vigor again. It was well no woman loved him except his mother. She would not criticise his changed appearance, or care less for him on account of it.

It was dusk when he reached the old Wood cabin. The shutters had not been drawn over the small, square window in the chimney-corner, and he crept across the yard to look into the room, himself unseen. A low fire burned on the hearth; he could smell the bread baking before it, and the smoke of frying bacon filled the room. Then he saw his mother sitting at the corner of the hearth knitting, while another woman stooped over the fire. Suddenly she stood erect, and he caught his breath sharply, for it was Armindy Hudgins, Elisha Cole's wife, flushed, handsomer than ever. What did it mean? Had they taken his mother to live with them? He writhed at the thought. He leaned forward, for Armindy was speaking:

"Now I'll step to the spring for a pail o' water; then we'll have supper."

"I wish Eph'um was here to eat it with us. Do you think he'll ever come, Armindy?" she said wistfully.

"I know he will," said Armindy, firmly; but a shadow fell upon her face, and Ephraim could see that she looked older, more serious, than in former days. But what a fine, elastic step she had! what supple curves in her figure! His eyes dwelt upon her with admiration, with despair. He loved her as deeply as ever. She stepped out of the room and went away to the spring. He followed her, determined to find out the cause of her presence in his mother's house.

He vividly remembered that other night when they stood at the spring together, and raised his eyes to Brandreth's Peak, but the moon hung low in the west, a pale crescent, Armindy knelt by the spring, dipping up the water, when his shadow came between her and the faint moonlight. She glanced up, then sprang to her feet, half-frightened; the next moment she ran to him and fell weeping on his neck.

"Eph'um! Eph'um! I said you'd come! I've always said you'd come!"

He gathered her to him; then tried to push her away.

"Don't—I—where is 'Lishy?" he stammered.

"I don't know. What do you want to think o' him for, now?" she cried, looking at him with wet eyes, drawing his face down to hers.

"Ain't you 'Lishy's wife?"

She fell back a little.

"Did you think I'd marry him? I loved you, Eph'um—you."

"Is that the reason you 're here with my mother?"

"Yes; I've been with her nearly all the time."

"It was my fault the raiders come out to get 'Lishy, that night."

"I knew it when I heard how you saved him from them. Oh, don't hate me for makin' you suffer so! It seemed like fun then, but I've been paid back for it all."

He felt dazed. Armindy free, Armindy faithful, and loving, and humbly entreating him not to hate her! Life thrilled afresh through him.

"Who did 'Lishy Cole marry?" he inquired at last.

"How you keep thinkin' o' him!"

"I can afford to now."

"He married Sary Ann Wood."

They were standing by the laurel thicket. She saw that his eyes were fixed on the flowers, and turned quickly away to take up the pail of water.

"I ain't danced the hoe-down since that night."

He broke off a spray of the flowers and fastened it in her hair.

S'PHIRY ANN.

The Standneges lived in a little sheltered cove upon the mountain-side, their house only a two-roomed cabin, with an entry separating the rooms, and low, ungainly chimneys at each end. Below it the Cartecay River lay like an amber ribbon in the green, fertile valley; above it towered majestic mountain heights, shrouded in silver mists or veiled in a blue haze. The Standneges were bred-and-born mountaineers, and had drifted into the little cove while Indian camp-fires were still glowing like stars in the valley of the Cartecay, and Indian wigwams dotting the river's banks. The house had a weather-beaten look, and the noble chestnut-oaks shading it had covered the roof with a fine green mold.

The kitchen, a heavy-looking, smoke-blackened structure with a puncheon floor, stood just in the rear of the house, and so situated that from the door one could look through the entry to the front gate and the mountain road beyond.

POLLY.

Mrs. Standnege sat in the kitchen door one morning with bottles and bean-bags scattered around her, "sortin'" out seed-beans. She was a woman not much beyond middle age, but lean and yellow, with faded eyes and scant dun-colored hair, time and toil and diet having robbed her of the last remnant of youth, without giving her a lovely old age. She was a good type of the average mountain woman, illiterate but independent, and contented with her scant homespun dress, her house, her beanbags.

MRS. STANDNEGE.

A heavy old loom occupied one corner of the kitchen, and Polly, the eldest daughter, sat on the high bench before it, industriously weaving, while S'phiry Ann stood by the smoke-stained mantel, watching the pine she had laid on the fire burst into vivid flame. A bundle of clothes lay at her feet, surmounted by a round flat gourd, filled with brown jelly-like soap.

Polly was the eldest and she the youngest of eight children, but the others all lay safely and peacefully in the little neglected burial-ground at the foot of the mountain. She was unlike mother and sister. She had youth, she was supple and fair, her hair dark and abundant, her eyes gray and clear. She had the soft, drawling voice, but also a full share of the sturdy independence, of her race. The circumstances of her christening, Mrs. Standnege was rather fond of relating.

"Yes, S'phiry Ann is er oncommon name," she would say, not without a touch of complacency, "but her pap give it tu her. She was a month old to a day, when that travelin' preacher come through here an' held meetin' fer brother Dan'l on Sunday. He preached mos'ly about them liars droppin' dead at the 'postles' feet, an' Standnege came home all but persessed about it, an' nothin' ed do but he mus' name the baby S'phiry Ann instead er Sary Ann as we had thought. He 'lowed it sarved them onprincipled folks right to die, an' he wanted somethin' ter remin' him o' that sermont. Well, I ain't desputin' but it was right, but I tole Standnege then, an' I say so yit, that ef all the liars in the world war tuk outen it, thar wouldn't be many folks left."

S'phiry Ann had heard of the fate of the Sapphira figuring in sacred history; it had been deeply impressed on her mind in her tenderest years, and might possibly have left a good impression, for she grew up a singularly truthful, upright girl. Just now, as she leaned against the mantel and stared at the fire, her face wore an unwontedly grave expression.

"Folks as set themselves up ter be better'n they ekals air mighty apt tu git tuk down, S'phiry Ann," said her mother, evidently resuming a conversation dropped a short time before.

"But I ain't a-settin' up ter be better'n my ekals, ma," said S'phiry Ann, gently but defensively.

"It 'peared like nothin' else yiste'day when you so p'intedly walked away from Gabe Plummer at meetin', an' it the fust time you had seed him since comin' from yer aunt Thomas over in Boondtown settle*mint*. Thar ain't no call ter treat Gabe so."

"But ain't we hearn he's tuk up with them distillers on the mountains?" said the girl in a low tone, a deep flush overspreading her face.

"Yes, we hev hearn it, but what o' that? Many a gal has tuk jes' sech."

"An' glad to get 'em, too," snapped Polly sharply, stopping to tie up a broken thread.

"Gabe Plummer is er oncommon steddy boy. He's er master hand at en'thing he wants ter do, an'—"

But S'phiry Ann did not linger to hear the full enumeration of her lover's virtues. Hastily balancing the bundle of clothes on her head, she took up the blazing torch, and hurried to the spring, a crystal-clear stream, running out of a ledge of rock, and slipping away through a dark ravine to the river. If she imagined she had escaped all reproaches for her reprehensible conduct the day before, it was a sad mistake. Hardly had the fire been kindled and the rusty iron kettle filled with water when a young man came treading heavily through the laurel thicket above the spring, leaped down the crag, and saluted her.

"Mornin', S'phiry Ann."

"Mornin', Gabe," she said, blushing vividly and busying herself piling unnecessary fuel on the fire.

MR. STANDNEGE.

He was a fine specimen of the mountaineer, lithe, well-made, toughened to hardy endurance, with tawny hair falling to his collar, and skin bronzed to a deep brown. He wore no coat, and his shirt was homespun, his nether garments of coarse brown jeans. He carried a gun, and a shot-bag and powder-horn were slung carelessly across his shoulders.

"I knowed you had a way er washin' on Monday, so I jest thought bein' as I was out a-huntin' I'd come roun'," he said, sitting down on the wash-bench, and laying the gun across his lap.

"You air welcome," she said, taking a tin pail and stepping to the spring to fill it.

"I wouldn't 'a' lowed so from yiste'day," darting a reproachful glance at her.

She made no reply.

"What made you do it, S'phiry Ann?" he exclaimed, no longer able to restrain himself. "I ain't desarved no sech; but if it was jes' ter tease me, why—"

She arose with the pail of water.

"No, it wasn't that," she said in a low tone, her eyes downcast, the color flickering uncertainly in her face.

"Then you didn't mean what was said that night a-comin' from the Dillin'ham gatherin'," he cried, turning a little pale. "Mebby it's somebody over in Boondtown settlement," a smoldering spark of jealousy flaming up.

"It's the 'stillery, Gabe," she said, and suddenly put down the pail to unburden her trembling hands. "You hadn't ought ter go inter it."

"But the crap last year made a plum' failure," he replied excusingly, his eyes shifting slightly under the light of hers. She was standing by the spring, against a background of dark green, a slanting sunbeam shifting its gold down through the overhanging pine on her dark, uncovered head, lighting up her earnest face, lending lustrous fire to her eyes. The scant cotton skirt and ill-fitting bodice she wore could not destroy the supple grace of her figure, molded for strength as well as beauty.

"The crap wusn't no excuse, an' if you mus' make whiskey up thar on the sly, I ain't no more tu say, an' I ain't no use fer ye."

"Yer mean it, S'phiry Ann?"

"I mean it, Gabe."

"Then you never keered," he cried with rising passion, "an' that half-way promise ter marry me was jest a lie ter fool me—nothin' but a lie, I'll make it if I please," bringing his down on the bench with a fierce blow.

"An' hide in the caves like a wild creetur, when the raiders air out on mountains?" she scornfully exclaimed.

GABE AND S'PHIRY ANN.

His sunburned face flushed a dull red, he writhed under the cruel question.

"They ain't apt ter git me, that's certain," he muttered.

"You don't know that," more gently. "Think o' Al Hendries an' them Fletcher boys. They thought themselves too smart for the officers, but they wasn't. You know how they was caught arter lyin' out for weeks, a-takin' sleet an' rain an' all but starvin', an' tuk ter Atlanty an' put in jail, an' thar they staid a-pinin'. I staid 'long er Al's wife them days, for she was that skeery she hated ter see night come, an' I ain't forgot how she walked the floor a-wringin' her hands, or settin' bent over the fire a-dippin' snuff or a-smokin'—'twas all the comfort she had—an' the chilluns axin' for their pap, an' she not a-knowin' if he'd ever git back. Oh! 'twas turrible lonesome—-plum' heart-breakin' to the poor creetur. Then one day, 'long in the spring, Al crep' in, all broke down an' no 'count. The life gave outen him, an' for a while he sot roun' an' tried ter pick up, but the cold an' the jail had their way, an' he died."

She poured out the brief but tragic story breathlessly, then paused, looked down, and then up again. "Gabe, I sez ter myself then, 'None o' that in your'n, S'phiry Ann, none o' that in your'n.'"

She raised the bucket and threw its contents into a tub.

Gabe Plummer cast fiery glances at her, the spirit and firmness she displayed commanding his admiration, even while they filled him with rage against her. Yes, he knew Al Hendries's story; he distinctly remembered the fury of resentment his fate roused among his comrades, the threats breathed against the law, but he held himself superior to that unfortunate fellow, gifted with keener wits, a more subtile wariness. The stand S'phiry Ann had taken against him roused bitter resentment in his soul, but the fact that he loved her so strongly made him loath to leave her. A happy dream of one day having her in his home, pervading it with the sweetness of her presence, had been his close and faithful companion for years, comforting his lonely winter nights when the wind tore wildly over the mountains, and the rain beat upon his cabin roof, or giving additional glory to languorous summer noons, when the cloud-shadows seemed to lie motionless on the distant heights, and the sluggish river fed moisture to the heated valley.

What right had she to spoil this dream before it had become a reality? He could not trust himself to argue the matter with her then, but abruptly rose to his feet.

"We'll not say any more this mornin', though I do think a-settin' up Al Hendries's wife ag'in me is an onjestice. Me an' some o' the boys air comin' down ter ole man Whitaker's this evenin,' an' bein' agreeable I might step down to see you ag'in."

"Jest as ye please," she quietly replied; then with a tinge of color added, "Ef you'll go back ter the clearin' I'll do jest what I promised, Gabe."

But without saying whether he would or would not, Gabe shouldered his gun and went away.

S'phiry Ann had been very calm and decided throughout the interview, but the moment her lover had disappeared she sank trembling on the bench, her face hidden in her hands.

"Ef it hadn't 'a' be'n for thinkin' o' Al Hendries's wife I never could 'a' stood up ag'in him," she sighed faintly.

A squirrel springing nimbly from a laurel to a slender chesnut-tree paused on a swaying branch to look at her, and a bird fluttered softly in the sweet-gum above her. The sun slipped under a cloud, and when she rose to go about her work, the spring day had grown gray and dull. It sent a shiver through her, as she stared dejectedly at the overshadowed valley. She had little time, though, for idle indulgence—she must be at her washing; and presently when the clouds had drifted away, and the sunshine steeped the earth in its warmth again, her spirits rose, a song burst from her lips—an ancient hymn, old almost as the everlasting mountains around her.

The day waxed to full noon, then waned, and S'phiry Ann spread the clothes on the garden-fence and the grass to dry. There were other duties awaiting her. The geese must be driven up, the cows milked, and water brought from the spring for evening use. Then she would put on her clean cotton gown, and smooth the tangles out of her hair, before Gabe came in. It was all accomplished as she had planned, and at dusk she sat on the rear step of the entry taking a few minutes of well-earned rest. The light streamed out from the kitchen, falling across the clean, bare yard and sending shifting gleams up among the young leaves of the trees. On the kitchen step sat Eph, an orphan boy of twelve or thirteen the Standneges had adopted, whittling a hickory stick for a whistle, and at his side crouched a lean, ugly hound. S'phiry could see her father tilted back in a chair against the loom, talking to Jim Wise, a valley farmer who had come up to salt his cattle on the mountains, while her mother and sister passed back and forth, preparing supper. The voices of the men were raised, and presently she heard Wise say:

"The raiders air out ter-night, so I hearn comin' up the mountain. They air expectin' ter ketch up with things this time, bein' as somebody has been a-tellin',—it 'pears so, anyway."

S'phiry Ann pressed her hands together with a little gasp.

"The boys air got they years open," said Mr. Standnege with a slow smile, his half-shut eyes twinkling.

"But this is er onexpected move, an' they mayn't be a-lookin' fer it," persisted the other man.

"They air always a-ready an' a-lookin'. They ain't ter be tuk nappin'."

But the girl, listening with breathless attention, shivered, not sharing her father's easy confidence. She remembered that Gabe Plummer had said they were coming down to old man Whitaker's, and she knew that they were off guard. They would be caught, she thought, with a cold sensation around her heart; Gabe would be put in jail, and locked up, probably for months, and then come back with all the youth and strength gone from him. Even as these thoughts were passing through her mind, a sound fell on her ears, faint, far away, and yet to her, alert, keenly alive to the approach of danger, terribly significant. It was the steady tramp of iron-shod hoofs upon the road, and it approached from the valley. She sat motionless, but with fierce-beating heart, listening and feeling sure it was the enemy drawing near.

The revenue men had always looked upon the Standneges as peaceful, law-abiding citizens, and though no information had ever been obtained from them, the officers sometimes stopped with them, lounged in the entry, or sat at their board, partakers of their humble fare. Probably they intended stopping for supper. The girl devoutly hoped they would. The steady tramp grew louder, the hound pricked up his long ears, sniffed the air, then dashed around the house with a deep, hostile yelp. The next moment a party of horsemen halted before the gate. Her fears were realized.

The dog barked noisily, the men chaffed each other in a hilarious way, while the horses stamped and breathed loudly, and the quiet place seemed all at once vivified with fresh life. Standnege went out to the gate followed by his guest; Mrs. Standnege and Polly came to the door and peered out, and Eph hurriedly closed his knife and thrust the whistle into his pocket preparatory to following his elders. The officers would not dismount, though hospitably pressed to do so.

"'Light, 'light, an' come in; the wimmen folks air jest a-gettin' supper," said Standnege cordially.

"Business is too urgent. We are bound to capture our men to-night. Why, the whole gang are coming down out of their lair to old man Whitaker's to-night, so we have been informed, and we must be on hand to welcome them."

Eph crossed the yard, but when he would have stepped up to take a short cut through the entry, his hand was caught in another hand so cold it sent a shiver of terror over him.

"My—why, S'phiry Ann!" he sharply exclaimed.

"Hush!" she whispered, drawing him out of the light. "Will you go with me ter ole man Whitaker's, Eph?"

"This time o' night?"

"Yes, now."

"It's more'n a mile."

"We'll take the nigh cut through the woods."

"Dark as all git-out."

"I'm not afeerd; I'll go erlone then," she said with contempt.

"What air you up ter?—Good Lord! S'phiry Ann, do you think that could be done an' they a-ridin'?" suddenly understanding her purpose.

"Nothin' like tryin'," she replied, and glided like a shadow around the corner of the house.

The boy stared for a moment after her.

"Well, I never!" he muttered, and followed on.

They ran through the orchard, an ill-kept, weedy place full of stunted apple-trees, across a freshly plowed field to the dense, black woods beyond. It was a clear night, the sky thickly set with stars, and low in the west a pale new moon hanging between two towering sentinel peaks, but the light could not penetrate to the narrow pathway S'phiry Ann had selected as the nearest route to Whitaker's. The awful solitude, the intense darkness, did not daunt her. She knew the way, her footing was sure, and she ran swiftly as a deer before the hunters, animated by one desire—to get to Whitaker's before the officers. It was a desperate chance. If her father detained them a few minutes longer—but if they hastened on—she caught her breath and quickened her own steps. Eph stumbled pantingly along behind her, divided between admiration at her fleetness and anger that he had been called on to take part in such a mad race.

In speaking of it afterward, he said:

"I never seed a creetur git over more ground in ez short a time sence that hound o' Mis' Beaseley's got pizened. It's a dispensin' er providence her neck wusn't broke, a-rushin' through them gullies an' up them banks, an' it so dark you mought 'a' fell plum' inter the bottomless pit an' not 'a' knowed it."

But S'phiry Ann had no consideration to spare to personal danger, as she broke through the underbrush and climbed stony, precipitous heights. Once an owl flew across her way, its outspread wings almost brushing her face, and with a terrified hoot sought a new hiding-place. The wind swept whisperingly through the forest, and a loosened stone rolled down and fell with a dull, hollow sound into the black depths of the ravine below them. Eph wished they had brought a torch, wished that he had not come, then struck out in a fresh heat, as he heard a mysterious rustling in the bushes behind him.

At last they emerged from the woods opposite Whitaker's, and S'phiry Ann leaned for a moment against the fence, panting, breathless, but exultant. She had won the race.

The house was only one forlorn old room, built of rough hewn logs, with a rickety shed in the rear. A small garden spot and the meager space inclosed with the house comprised all the open ground. Mountains rose darkly above it, and, below, the mountain road wound and twisted in its tortuous course, to the fair, open valley. At the back of the dwelling the ridge shelved abruptly off into a deep ravine, dark the brightest noonday—an abyss of blackness at night.

From the low, wide, front door ruddy light streamed generously, defying the brooding night, playing fantastic tricks with the thickly growing bushes on the roadside. The girl had a good view of the interior, the men lounging around the fire, the vivid flame of pine-knots bringing out the lines in their tanned, weather-beaten faces, flashing into their lowering eyes, and searching out with cruel distinctness all the rough shabbiness of their coarse homespun and jeans.

There were the Whitaker boys, hardy, middle-aged men; Jeff Ward, a little shriveled fellow with long, tangled, gray beard and sharp, watchful eyes; Bill Fletcher, who had bravely survived the trials which had proved the death of his comrade, poor Al Hendries; Jeems Allen, a smooth-faced boy, and Gabe Plummer. He sat somewhat aloof from the others, staring gloomily into the fire, instead of giving attention to the lively story Jeff Ward was telling. At one end of the great hearth, laid of rough unhewn rocks, sat old man Whitaker, at the other, his wife—a gray and withered couple; he tremulous with age, she deaf as a stone.

Nobody seemed to be on the lookout for enemies. The wide-flung door, the brilliant light, the careless group, gave an impression of security.

What had become of the revenue officers? No sound of hoofs struck upon the hard road, or murmur of voices betrayed hostile approach. Eph turned and peered down the road, then clutched excitedly at his companion's arm.

"Good Lord, S'phiry Ann! they're right down there a-hitchin' they horses an' a-gittin' ready ter creep up. I'm er-goin' ter leave here."

S'phiry Ann sprang across the fence, and the next moment stood in the door.

"The raiders! the raiders air a-comin'!" she cried, not loudly, but with startling distinctness; her torn dress, wild, loose hair, and brilliant, excited eyes, giving her a strangely unfamiliar aspect. The warning cry thrilled through the room and brought every man to his feet in an instant.

"Whar? which way?" exclaimed young Jeems Allen, staring first up among the smoke-blackened rafters, then at the solid log wall.

"'Tain't the time fer axin' questions, but fer runnin', boys," said Jeff Ward, making a dash toward the back door, closely followed by his comrades. Gabe Plummer had made a step toward S'phiry Ann, but she vanished as she appeared, and he escaped with his friends into the fastnesses of the woods. There was a shout from the raiders, creeping stealthily around the house, a disordered pursuit, and over the cabin the stillness following a sudden whirlwind seemed to fall.

S'phiry Ann crept cautiously out from the chimney-corner, slipped over the fence, and knelt down in the edge of the bushes, to watch and wait. The officers soon returned with torn clothes, scratched hands and faces, but without a prisoner. They were swearing in no measured terms at being baffled of their prey.

Old man Whitaker and his wife had quietly remained in the house, apparently not greatly moved from their usual placidity. Once the old woman dropped the ball of coarse yarn she was winding, and rose to her feet, but the old man motioned her down again. They were questioned by the officers, but what reliable information could be expected from an imbecile old man and a deaf old woman? The girl could overlook the whole scene from a crack in the fence—the officers stamping about the room, the scattered chairs, the old people with their withered yellow faces, dim eyes, and bent, shrunken forms, and the dancing flames leaping up the wide sooty chimney. Satisfied that the distillers were safe, she softly rose and started across the road. One of the men caught a glimpse of her, the merest shadowy outline, and instantly shouted:

"There goes one of 'em now!"

She heard him—heard the rush of feet over the threshold and the bare yard, and without a backward glance, fled like a wild thing through the woods, home.

One afternoon, a week later, S'phiry Ann drew the wheel out into the middle of the kitchen floor, tightened the band, pulled a strip of yellow corn-husk from a chink in the logs to wrap the spindle, and set herself to finish spinning the "fillin'" for the piece of cloth in the loom. Her mother and sister were out in the garden sowing seeds, Eph was cutting bushes in the new ground, and she could hear the loud, resonant "geehaw" with which her father guided the ox drawing his plow. It was a serenely still day—the heat of mid-summer in its glowing sunshine, with only a fleck of cloud here and there along the horizon, and mountains wrapped in a fine blue haze.

It had been a trying week to S'phiry Ann, but she had no time to mope and brood over her anxieties, no inclination to confide them to her family. She had not shirked daily duties, but went about them silently and without enthusiasm. The revenue officers, disgusted, angered at their disappointment, lingered on the mountains several days, seeking something to lay violent hands on. One still they found and destroyed, but if the earth had opened and swallowed them, their prey could not have disappeared more completely. The law is strong, but it loses its power when carried into the strongholds of the mountains, majestic, clothed in repose, yielding up their secrets only to those bred and born upon them.

S'phiry Ann lifted her eyes to the lofty heights, yearning to know if her lover and his friends had found safe refuge, trembling with terror every time the dog barked or an ox-cart creaked slowly along the road. When the family were made acquainted with her part in that Monday night raid, there were various exclamatory remarks at the inconsistency of her behavior. Mrs. Standnege dropped her pipe, and stared at her in great amazement.

"Well, ef you don't beat all! Last Sunday a-slightin' Gabe Plummer at meetin', an' now mighty nigh a-breakin' yer neck ter git him outen the way o' the raiders."

"Gabe wasn't the only one thar," said the girl in a low tone.

"But it stands ter reason you wouldn't 'a' done it, ef he hadn't 'a' be'n thar. Yer pap may hev ter look out fer a new farm-hand arter all," with a touch of facetious humor, but watching the slow reddening of the girl's throat and face. Standnege came to her aid—

"Let her be, ma, an' work it out in her own mind. Thar ain't no 'countin' fer the doin's o' wimmun folks, no how. They air mighty oncertain creeturs."

"Why, pap!" exclaimed his eldest daughter, a mixture of indignation and reproach in her tone.

"Now, I ain't a-meanin' ter throw off on 'em, an' I don't say as they ain't all steddy enough when they settle down, but a gal in love is the oncertainest creetur that ever lived. Now S'phiry Ann ain't a-lackin' in common sense an' grit, if she does belong to me," he continued, with calm impartiality; "an' ef she wants ter marry Gabe Plummer 'fore craps air laid by, she kin do it."

But it was Monday again, and S'phiry felt that her fortune was still an unsettled thing.

"Ef it hadn't 'a' be'n for thinkin' o' Al Hendries's wife," she said to herself again and again, and the old spinning-wheel flew swiftly beneath strong, young fingers, and the yellow corn-husk on the spindle filled slowly with smooth, even thread. She could look as downcast and troubled as her heart prompted, for no curious eyes were resting on her. Was it true? A shadow suddenly darkened the doorway.

"Howd'y'do, S'phiry Ann?"

The half-twisted thread fell from her fingers, writhed and rolled along the floor, fair sport for the kitten lazily coiled on the hearth, while she turned toward the secretly wished-for, but unexpected, visitor. She trembled, and the color in her face flushed and paled.

"Gabe!" Then quickly, and with a swift searching glance toward the road, "is it safe for you ter be here?"

"Yes, they air gone—an' ter the devil, I hope." He leaned against the wall, jaded, forlorn-looking, the week of hiding out not improving either temper or appearance.

"Take a cheer, an' set down, Gabe," she said, a vibration of tenderest pity in her voice.

"I ain't a-keerin' tu rest jest yit. That was a good turn you done us t'other night. No tellin' where we would be now ef it hadn't 'a' be'n fer that. I don't know how to thank you fer it, S'phiry Ann," he said, with strong emotion in his voice.

"Don't, Gabe!" she stammered, stooping to snatch the tangled thread from the paws of the kitten.

"Would you 'a' done it fer me?"

"'Tain't fair tu be axin' sech questions," she said defensively.

"'Cordin' tu promise you air tu marry me."

"I saud ut ef you 'ud go back tu the clearin'."

"Yes, an' that's jest what I'm a-goin' tu do. I've had a week o' thinkin', an' now I'm willin' tu 'low you kin hev your way. Ain't I b'en tu put my head outen the holler?" he continued in angry disgust; "afeerd tu tech a leaf fer the noise it made? afeerd tu draw my breath? an' I tell ye, I ain't a-hankerin' arter any more sech days, an' I told the boys so, an' I'm a-goin' back tu the clearin' ef every crap fails."

S'phiry Ann stood by the wheel, her face turned from him, silent, motionless. He waited a moment, then strode across the floor, and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"We mus' settle it now, S'phiry, I ain't a-blamin' you now, though I don't say as I didn't, back yander a week ergo, fer standin' tu principle."

"Ef it hadn't 'a' be'n fer thinkin' o' Al Hendries's wife," she said gently.

"I've be'n a-lovin' you er long time, an' it's tu settle what we air a-goin' tu do."

"The clearin' settles it, Gabe," she murmured, and turned her head slowly until her eyes, softly radiant, met his eager, ardent ones.

AN "ONFORTUNIT CREETUR."

Mrs. Upchurch sat in the entry of her house knitting, while down on the step—a rough block of Georgia granite—Mr. Upchurch sat resting and smoking an after-dinner pipe. It was on a summer afternoon, and the hot glare of the sun made a shade gratefully welcome. The house had only the space of an ordinary yard between it and the public country road, but it was on a breezy hill and commanded a fine view of the surrounding country.

Far away, above the green, wooded hills and valleys, rose the North Georgia Mountains, veiled in misty blue. Those mountains were the boundary line of Mrs. Upchurch's world. She had never gone to them; she never dreamed of going beyond them. Still, they were old friends, immovable, unchangeable, upon which she could look when perplexed, sorrowful, or glad. She worked slowly, and often glanced away toward those distant peaks, a very grave meditative light in her eyes.

She was a woman above medium height, and rather dignified in appearance and manner, with a kind, homely face, yellowed and hardened by sun and wind, and with honest, steadfast eyes. She had on a stout, plain cotton dress, and an old brown veil was drawn around her head and tied under her chin. Summer and winter she wore it, to ward off that greatest enemy of her peace—neuralgia.

"He always was an onfortunit creetur," she said abruptly, and with a sigh.

"Who now, Peggy?" inquired Mr. Upchurch in some surprise.

"Why, Ab," and laying her knitting down on her knee, she smoothed it out thoughtfully.

"That brother o' your'n?"

"Yes; I said he always was an onfortunit creetur."

"Yes, onfortunitly lazy," her husband dryly observed.

"He all but died wi' the measles when he was a sucklin' baby not more'n three months old, an' then 'long come the whoopin'-cough on the heels er that, an' liked to 'a' tuk him off. Then you remember ther time he was snake-bit on his big toe, an' how the pizen flew all over him like lightnin', an' he would er died ef we hadn't er happened ter have some dram in the house. Then he tuk cramp once in Punkin Vine Creek, an' would er drownded right on the spot ef Providence hadn't er sent the singin'-school teacher along fer ter fish him out."

The half-forgotten incidents of childhood and youth crowded fresh upon her memory. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees—a favorite attitude with many country women when they are smoking their pipes, dipping snuff, or are lost in deep thought—and thrust a knitting-needle through her hair. But her reminiscences did not impress her husband very deeply. He eyed her kindly, and with a slight touch of pity.

"You hain't seen him sence the war, Peggy. What's got inter you that yer mind keeps er runnin' onter him ter-day?"

"I'm shore I don't know, Sam, but it's er fact. I ain't thought as much erbout him these twenty years an' more as I have ter-day. Mebby Ab's a-comin'."

"Mebby he is, but 'tain't likely at this late day, an' I wouldn't be a-botherin' erbout it, Peggy," said the farmer, shaking the ashes out of his pipe before placing it in his pocket.

"I ain't exactly botherin', Sam, but I dreamed erbout him las' night, an' takin' it all tergether it jes' pesters me er little."

Mr. Upchurch got up slowly from his resting-place, and stepping into the west room, took down his gun from over the door.

"B'lieve I'll go a-huntin', Peggy."

"Well," she answered, absently, still thinking of her brother, and wondering if she would ever see him again.

"He's that onfortunit, he might 'a' wandered off an' er died among strangers, with not er soul ter look arter him, or ter put him erway decently," she murmured in a troubled undertone. "I can't fergit the time he stood between me an' old Miss Whitlock's dog, that run mad when me an' him was little fellers. He was always sorter sickly an' quare, but I knowed then he had grit, for there he stood as calm as could be, an' that dog a-comin' straight fer him, or so it 'peared like, jest er-foamin' at the mouth. I thought shore Ab 'ud be bit plum' through, but the critter passed by without techin' him. Them days is all over, but I ain't fergot that, I orter love him, poor feller!" And she looked away to those blue mountains with eyes grown dim with sudden tears.

It was Saturday afternoon, and therefore a holiday among the farmers. A man must be hard pushed indeed who will not "knock off" Saturday afternoon.

The Upchurch family were thrifty, industrious people, took care of their not too fertile farm, lived honest lives, and kept peace with their neighbors.

"Upchurch is er smart man, ef I do say it," his wife would sometimes proudly remark. "When me an' him married we 'lowed we'd help one ernuther, an' mebby we'd git helped; an' so we did, fer Providence always helps them that helps themselves."

Peggy Upchurch was a good woman, and noted among her neighbors and friends for her readiness to visit the sick and the sorrowful. She was a useful woman in her narrow sphere, a strict member of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and while she did not consider it right "fer wimmin to speak out in meetin'," she did a good deal of missionary work quietly.

She rose and glanced around to see if everything had been put in proper order, then sat down again, with her snuff-box and her knitting on her lap.

The house was a double log-house—that is, two large rooms with a wide, open entry between, and a loft above. In the furnishing of those rooms, the chief consideration seemed to have been beds—high feather beds, with blue and white checked foot-curtains concealing the unpainted pine posts of the bedsteads, and elaborately fringed "double-wove" counterpanes spread over them. Those beds were the pride of Mrs. Upchurch's heart.

"I raised them feathers myself, an' I know they er fresh ernough fer the President ter sleep on."

Doors stood wide open, letting in sunshine and sweet flowers' scents, and George Washington looked down from his rusty frame with a gracious unbending of his dignity.

A few scrubby oaks shaded the clean-swept yard, and a honeysuckle vine had been trained to climb and spread itself over the rough logs of the house. A fine rose-bush bloomed beside the gate, and there were beds of larkspur, pinks, and sweet-williams in the sunnier spots.

It was a home the counterpart of which may be found in almost any portion of Georgia, bare and rather lonely looking, but clean and healthy, and to the householders acceptable as a kingly palace. It appeared a very haven of rest and peace to the tired, dusty tramp toiling up the wide, hot road. His eyes wandered from object to object as though the place was not unfamiliar to him, and a slight quiver of emotion crossed his features when that roving glance fell on Mrs. Upchurch. He carried a small bundle hanging from the end of a knotted hickory stick over his right shoulder, and he walked in a halting, uneven way. He turned from the road and stopped at the gate.

"Good-evenin', ma'am."

"Good-evenin', sir," said Mrs. Upchurch, looking at him with some curiosity.

He opened the gate.

"May I come in an' git er drink er water? Walkin' is pow'ful hot work."

"Ter be shore; jes' walk right in an' take er seat an' rest yerself; you look plum' fagged out," said the hospitable woman, rising and placing a chair out in the entry for him.

He walked across the yard in a footsore and weary way, and dropped feebly down on the edge of the floor, laying his stick and meager bundle beside him. He took off his ragged old hat, and wiped his face on a faded cotton handkerchief. He was a sorry-looking case, shabbily dressed, thin, and stooping, and without the color of blood about his sallow face and hardened hands. His eyes were hollow, and he coughed once or twice a dry hacking cough. So utterly forlorn and friendless did he appear, that deep pity stirred Mrs. Upchurch's heart. He stared hard at her, his face working in an agitated manner. She brought him a gourd of water, and taking it in his trembling hands, he drank slowly from it.

"That's good," he muttered softly.

"Yes, we've got the best well in this country. But won't you take this cheer an' rest? It's better'n the floor," she said compassionately.

"No'm. Is this—where—Sam—Upchurch—lives—that married Peggy Dyer?" he slowly inquired.

"Why, yes; Upchurch bought this place before me an' him was married, an' we've been er-livin' here ever sence," she said, surprised, and striving to recognize him. He had called her name with the ease and familiarity of one well acquainted with it, but not a friend of her youth could she recall who would bear the slightest resemblance to this poor wanderer. Singularly enough, at that moment she had forgotten the brother Ab who had been haunting her memory all day. "You're not er stranger in this settlement, air you?"

"Yes, it 'pears like I am now. You don't seem to know me, Peggy?" he said with a sort of tremble in his voice, his haggard eyes raised to her pleasant, homely face.

She fell to trembling then herself, and her sunburnt face grew pale, for a sudden thought flashed into her mind—a bare possibility, that overcame her. She sat down in her chair, with a searching, eager look at the shabby, stooping figure, and pallid, sickly face.

"I orter know that voice; it 'pears like—" she faltered unsteadily.

"Have you forgot yer brother Ab, Peggy?"

"HAVE YOU FERGOT YER BROTHER AB, PEGGY?"

"Lor', Ab! that ain't possible! it's too good ter be true!" she cried, and then burst into joyful tears.

"Yes, it's me," he said quietly, and wiped his own eyes.

There were no open demonstrations of love. They did not even shake hands.

"Air you glad ter see me, Peggy?" he asked in a sort of sad wonder, but no longer doubtful of his welcome.

"Glad! O Ab, ain't I been a-wantin' ter see you fer nigh on ter twenty years?" she cried, in a voice that might have laid the most subtile doubts at rest. "Come in, brother, and take a cheer, do," wiping her eyes on her knitting, and looking at him tenderly.

"I'm not a-hurtin' here, Peggy. I'm tired enough to rest ennywheres. It's been er hard pull ter git here."

"Praise the Lord that you did git here!" she ejaculated fervently.

She took his hat and stick and bundle and put them away, she brought him more water, and when he declined any further service she drew her chair near him, and sat down.

"You look well an' hearty, Peggy."

"Yes, I ain't got nothin' ter complain erbout; but you—you're dreadful peaked, Ab," she faltered, her heart yearning over him.

He drew his handkerchief across his face again, and coughed that dull, hacking little cough.

"I've been a'mos' dead with my liver. Low-country life didn't agree with me, an' I've been onfortunit, Peggy."

"You always was onfortunit, Ab. Me an' Upchurch have jes' been a-talkin' of the many times you come nigh ter losin' yer life when er boy, let erlone the war an' sence the war. Upchurch is gone a-huntin' now, an' Tempy an' the boys, they er gone over the creek ter town; but as I started ter say, it's cur'us how some folks hev ter live, sorter holdin' on ter life ennyhow. It's er slippery thing at the best, somethin' like er eel that'll slip through yer fingers jest when you're shore you've got it" (ending with a sigh).

"I've had my sheer er bad luck now, shorely," said Dyer wearily.

"Then you must be a-lookin' out for the good," said his sister more cheerfully. The deep dejection, the utter hopelessness of tone and appearance troubled her—took away something from her joy. She grew anxious to see him brighten up, raise his head, and speak with animation. She could not keep her eyes off him. His vagabond appearance, his evident ill health roused all her sisterly love, her womanly compassion. Oh, what a hard life he must have lived to be so changed! He had been a weak and ailing child, and odd, extremely odd, in all his ways. She, being the eldest, had watched over him, and had learned to know him better than any one else did, but she never expected to see him so unkempt, neglected, and broken down.

"Oh, brother, what've you been a-doin' with yourself?" she said abruptly, her eyes filling up again.

"A-roamin' up an' down the world. Lately I've be'n livin' down in southwest Georgia. I married there," he replied.

"Law! you did? Where is your wife?"

"Dead, an' so is my little gal. She was er peart little thing," and he turned his head away, swallowing audibly, as though something choked him. "I wish you could 'a' seed her, Peggy," he continued after a slight pause.

"An' I wish it too, Ab. Can't you tell me erbout her?" she said gently, and with deep sympathy.

"She was the smartest little creetur I ever saw, an' knowed the mos' for her age. She use' ter run an' meet me when I come in, an' the fust thing 'ud be, 'Daddy, I love you; do you love me?' Then she'd put her arms round my neck an' lay her face up close ter mine. Then when she got bigger, she was always a-wantin' ter help me, an' I never axed for better comp'ny than my little Sary Jane. O Lord! if she'd only 'a' lived. It fairly tuk the life outen me to see her—to see her—"

His head dropped on his breast, and again he was silent.

"You er 'bout all the kin I've got, Peggy," he said at last, and there was something in the broken way he uttered the few words that caused her to wipe her eyes again furtively on her knitting.

"You mus' stay with me now, Ab, an' not go wanderin' off enny more. You've be'n keerless erbout your health, I know in reason."

"Mebby I have."

He met his brother-in-law rather shrinkingly at first, but Sam Upchurch gave him such a hearty welcome, he seemed to grow more at ease. About sundown the children returned from their holiday visit to Rockymount, a small town two miles away across Bear Creek. There were four—three sturdy sunburnt boys and one handsome sunburnt girl. She was the eldest, and Mrs. Upchurch presented her to her uncle with motherly pride.

"This is our Tempy, Ab."

He looked at the tall, bright-eyed, rose-faced girl with melancholy surprise. He shook hands with her in an awkward, hesitating way.

"Why, she's grown, Peggy."

"Yes, grown, an' talkin' er gittin' married," said Peggy with a laugh and a sigh.

"Law, now, ma, jes' lis'en at you!" cried Tempy, blushing crimson and retreating to the kitchen.

The young people eyed the new-comer cautiously, and would have little to say to him; but the elders used all their homely arts to entertain him and make him comfortable. After supper, when they had returned from the kitchen to the entry, he grew more communicative. The boys were off in the thickets bird-thrashing, and Tempy sat in the best room with Jeff Morgan, her sweetheart, who lived in an adjoining settlement, and came on Saturday evening, and remained until Monday morning. So the older people were sitting alone in the entry, and Sam Upchurch smoked his pipe, and Peggy dipped snuff, but Dyer declined joining them in using tobacco.

"Had ter quit that years ergo. I have had ups an' downs sence the war. One time I went down inter the piny woods of Alabama an' j'ined the gopher traders, but it wasn't a payin' business, an' I quit it an' sot up ter teachin' school. If you can spell baker you can teach school in them diggin's. Then I tuk it inter my head to settle down an' have er home; but Susan she died, and the little un had ter go too, an' I've jes' be'n knockin' erbout ever sence." His poor thin hands worked nervously, and his head drooped dejectedly again.

How sharply his empty, desolate life contrasted with his sister's busy, useful, happy one! Her husband was beside her; the shouts of her boys floated up from the pine thickets where their torches flashed in and out like the flame of a "Jack-o'-lantern," and occasionally Tempy's full, hearty laugh rang out. The sister thought of it with a sigh, but feeling humbly grateful for her own good fortune. Upchurch, too, vaguely felt the contrast, for he said: "Well, you've got er home here now if you er mind ter take it. Peggy'll be doctorin' you up in no time."

He shook his head with a faint, dry smile.

A screech-owl flew into the yard near the house and began a doleful "shir-r-r-r." The men did not seem to notice it, but Mrs. Upchurch moved uneasily, for neither religion nor common sense could rid her of the superstitious feeling that it meant bad luck. That night her short, simple, but earnest prayers included the poor wanderer, and also an entreaty that no bad luck might come to any of them.

On Sunday morning the wagon was brought around, and all the family came out in their "go-ter-meetin'" clothes.

Ab declined accompanying them, although he had partially recovered from the fatigue of the day before, and he obstinately refused to allow one of the family to remain at home with him, to his sister's distress. She would gladly have remained, for there were still many things she wished to talk over with him, but he would not hear to it.

"I make no pretensions, Peggy, but neither am I goin' ter keep them erway that does," he said more decidedly than she had yet heard him speak.

He was sitting on the fence whittling a stick, and many were the curious glances directed toward the shabby, stooping figure, as the country people passed on their way to Ebenezer.

It was soon known throughout the settlement that Ab Dyer, Peggy Upchurch's brother had come, and the women discovered they owed Peggy a visit, and the men dropped in to see Upchurch, or to borrow some farming tool. Ab did not impress the visitors very favorably. Some regarded him suspiciously, others with more or less contempt.

"He's shore to be crazy," said old Miss Davis confidentially to Sally Gancey.

"You reckon?" in a shocked tone.

"Yes, an' er tramp, too. Won't you take er dip?" producing the little black snuff-box her grandfather had bequeathed to her.

"B'lieve I will. Po' Mis' Upchurch! how she mus' feel!"

"Law, it ain't no new thing. I knowed Ab Dyer when he wasn't much bigger'n er woodpeck, an' he never was right bright. He ain't 'walked fur with Solomon,' I kin tell you," rolling her eyes knowingly.

So the bit of gossip went from house to house, and hints of it reached the Upchurches; but if the poor wanderer ever heard of it, he made no sign. Yet it cut Peggy Upchurch to the heart, and she strove, by additional tenderness and consideration, to make up to him for all he had lost in not gaining the good will of the neighbors.

"I've always noticed that them that's talked erbout is apt ter be better than them that does the talkin'," she said privately to Upchurch.

But once she ventured to gently remonstrate with Ab about the palpable lack of pride in his personal appearance.

"'Tain't no use, Peggy. I wanted ter be somethin' an' I tried, but ever'thing went ag'in' me."

"You mus'n't be mad erbout that, Ab. It was the Almighty's doin's, though I ain't one er them that lays ever'thing ter Providence. Mebby you didn't start right."

"Mebby I didn't," he replied, spiritlessly, and with a fit of coughing. He sat on the door-step in the sunshine, his shoulders bent over, his chin almost touching his knees, as much of a vagabond as the day on which he walked up the road, seeking the last of his kith and kin.

"It pesters me to see you so down in the mouth. I'm all the time a-wantin' ter see you pearten up. Don't that fat light'ood-splinter tea help yer cough?"

"No; but don't you be a-botherin' erbout me, Peggy. 'Tain't no use."

"Ah, that sayin' o' yourn, ''Tain't no use,' has done a sight er harm in this world. Too many folks says it fer their own good," said Mrs. Upchurch solemnly.

"That may be so, but I ain't been no use ter myself nor nobody else."

"Well, I say you have. Don't forgit yer young days an' the time you run between me an' old Miss Whitlock's mad dog. I remember it, an' I'll keep on rememberin' it till I die."

"Lor'! that wasn't nothin'," he said, moving uneasily, a sort of flush passing over his face.

"Yet if you hadn't 'a' done it, I might not 'a' been here now," impressively, and with the feeling that she must ever hold him lovingly and gratefully in her heart, no matter how idle and purposeless his life might be—and one might better have been dead than lazy in that community.

"Mebby if the little un had 'a' lived—" he muttered, but leaving the sentence unfinished, he hastily rose and walked away toward the lot.

He grew rather fond of Tempy, after a cautious, undemonstrative fashion. His eyes would follow her in an absorbed, wistful way, for in her he saw, as it were, a pale vision of his own child grown to womanhood—a pale vision, for no girl could compare with what the reality would have been in his eyes.

Tempy's wedding-day approached, and he astonished her with the gift of ten dollars—all he had.

"Ter help buy yer fixin's," he said, and carefully restored the empty leather purse to his pocket.

The days came and went, and the farmers worked from daylight till dark, but Ab Dyer idled about the house or wandered aimlessly through the woods with a gun. Sometimes he would bring home game, but oftener he would come empty-handed.

"What ails him, Peggy?" Sam Upchurch inquired one evening, after Dyer had gone off to bed. "There ain't nothin' to be got outen him."

"He's give up—that's what ails him, an' it's the worst thing a body could do fer themselves. Ab always was easy to git down in the mouth, an' it 'pears like he ain't a-goin' to git over the loss o' his fambly. Poor fellow! he always was an onfortunit creetur," wiping her eyes on her nightcap and sighing deeply.

The summer drew near its end, and one cloudy morning, late in August, Sam Upchurch pulled out the buggy, harnessed his best horse to it, and invited Ab to go with him over to Rockymount, to buy some things for Tempy's wedding. It had rained torrents the night before, and Bear Creek rushed along turbulent, muddy, and nearly up to the bridge.

"But we'll be all right, if it don't set in to rainin' ag'in," said Upchurch, taking a sweeping glance at the clouds rolling so darkly above them.

"An' ef it does?" Ab dryly inquired.

"Well, I reckon we will, ennyhow; the bridge is new," Sam easily and carelessly replied.

It did rain again, heavy, flooding rains, and they were detained in town until quite late. Indeed, they did not realize how swiftly the day passed, until night was upon them.

"Better lie over in town to-night. Bear Creek ain't er pleasant sight jes' now," said an acquaintance, who also lived beyond the creek. But Sam Upchurch shook his head.

"No, Peggy'll be a-lookin' fer us, an' the bridge is strong. There ain't no danger, ef the water does run over it."

"You don't know that. My old woman'll be a-lookin' fer me, too, but I ain't a-goin' ter risk my life jes' fer that," muttered the other countryman, shrugging his shoulders.

It was dark when the belated travelers reached the creek—not the gray darkness of twilight, but the pitchy blackness of a clouded, stormy night. They could hear the rush and roar of the stream, and the horse trembled and shrank back from it in fear, but, urged on by his master's voice, he ventured in. For many a day Sam Upchurch reproached himself for that rash and foolhardy act, but he had such faith in the strength of the bridge, that he did not think of danger until with a desperate plunge they were floundering in the creek.

"Good God! the bridge is gone!" he groaned, and the next moment felt the buggy swept away from him by the strong current.

"Ab!" he shouted loudly.

"Here I am. Can you swim, Sam?"

"Not much here," he cried hoarsely, realizing that only a bare chance of life remained. A vision of his home rose up before him, and of his wife and children; life never seemed so precious and desirable a thing as when death stared him in the face. He groaned aloud; then he heard Ab's voice close beside him—

"Ketch onter this limb."

It was a willow bough clipping into the water, a slender, flexible thing, not strong enough to bear the weight of both men; but Upchurch did not know that when he clutched so desperately at the frail chance of salvation.

Ab loosened his grasp.

"What's the matter?" cried his brother-in-law in quick alarm, for the poor fellow brushed against him as the strong, swift current carried him away.

"Nothin'! Git home ter Peggy an' the chillun if you can. I'm goin'"—but there his voice died away, was swallowed up in the confusion of noises around them. Upchurch shouted himself hoarse, but no reply came back to him, and chilled and stiffened he drew himself up out of the water, realizing at last that Ab had given up to him the one chance of life that lay between them.

They laid him down within the shadow of Ebenezer Church, along with the other quiet sleepers who rested there, and no one ever again breathed aught against the luckless vagabond; while in one household his memory was gratefully and tenderly cherished. Never did a stormy night come, but they would draw up around the flaming pine-knot fire thinking of him, and Mrs. Upchurch would take one of Tempy's children on her knee, to shield her tearful eyes from observation.

Then again she would sit in the entry on calm, clear summer days, with her knitting and her snuff, just as she sat that day he came up the road, footsore, and weary with his tramp, and, recalling all the trials and failures of his life, she would far away toward those misty blue mountains, softly murmuring:

"Poor Ab! He always was an onfortunit creetur."

BET CROW.

A DIALECT STORY OF GEORGIA LIFE.

Mr. Jesse Crow sat on the front fence with his feet comfortably resting on the lower rail, whittling a stick. Crops had been "laid by," and he felt that he could afford to sit on the fence and engage in the pleasing recreation of whittling. But it was not, on this particular occasion, enjoyed as heartily as usual. It seemed to be a mere mechanical occupation to aid him in solving a knotty problem. He was a small, wiry, mild-eyed man, with a deeply tanned complexion and a good-humored expression. He was a prosperous farmer, and highly respected in the settlement, where he had a good reputation for fair, honest dealing and clear judgment, though often permitting his love of mercy to overrule the rigid laws of justice.

"It ain't no use in bein' hard on enny creetur," he would say mildly. "We ain't all been tried erlike, an' thar mought be extinguishin' sarcums-tances ter jedge by if we could see 'em."

But this morning his brows were drawn together in a perplexed frown, and he stared at the slowly sharpening splinter with abstracted eyes. The steady, even fall of hoofs upon the hard, dry road roused him from his reflections, and glancing up he saw Jim Edwards, his neighbor and crony, approaching on his old gray mare. Mr. Jesse Crow hailed him with hearty delight.

"Won't you 'light an' come in?" he asked hospitably.

"No, reckon not this mornin'. Nancy's in er pow'ful hurry fer some truck, but I don't know as I min' a-jinin' you thar a little while."

He dismounted, threw the bridle over a low projecting limb of the great chestnut-tree standing near the gate, and in a few minutes sat on the fence by the side of his friend.

"You have heard erbout Tom Fannin a-takin' that money from Bill Sanders, down whar they air a-workin' on the new railroad?" he said, fumbling for his knife from mere force of habit, and settling himself for a little gossip.

"Yes," said Mr. Crow, seriously, "an' I don't min' sayin' that I never was more tuk down."

"Well, I thought better o' Tom than that myself, but you know what the scripturs say 'bout Satan allus a-havin' work fer idle hands ter do, an' it's purty well known Tom Fannin's as lazy as his hide kin hold."

"Yes, that's so," assented his companion.

Edwards stole a glance at him, shifted the tobacco around in his mouth, and then—

"How does Bet take it?" he rather diffidently inquired.

"That's what's pesterin' me erbout the matter, Ed'ards," exclaimed Mr. Crow, dropping the last sliver from his whittling, and turning toward his companion. "Bet lows he didn't do it; she knows in reason he didn't, an' ter that point she sticks."

"But, man alive, the money was found in his pocket! It was this way, an' I hearn it from Bill hisself. Him an' Tom has been a-roomin' together since Tom tuk an' started to work down thar, an' Bill one mornin' put twenty dollars in the top er his trunk with nobody seein' it but Tom. At dinner-time it wus gone. The men, black an' white, wus all fer havin' their pockets searched, an' when they come ter Tom's coat a-hangin' on er bush, thar wus the money stacked down in the little pocket. Some er the boys say he turned mighty white, an' 'lowed he didn't know 'twas thar, an' kep' on denyin' it, but the p'int is, how did it come thar then?"

"I've tole Bet that, time an' ag'in, but every time she sez, 'Pa, I know he didn't take it.'"

"How do you know?" says I.

"''Cause he sez so—' as if that kin clar up the matter. Thar ain't no reasonin' with wimmen folks, Ed'ards."

"That's so, Jesse. If you ax 'em why they believe sech an' sech, they'll apt ter say 'jes' 'cause,' an' that's all the sense you kin git outen 'em."

"It ain't my fault Bet's been a-keepin' comp'ny long o' Tom Fannin—it's er puzzlin' thing ter me how she kin like him, knowin' he is lazy an' sorter triflin', but Bet's got er head of her own," with a sudden touch of pride, and fumbling along the rail for another loose splinter.

"She's er likely gal, if I do say it ter you, Jesse Crow, an' I'd 'a' been mighty glad if she'd 'a' tuk a likin' ter Pink. She knows how ter work, an' she ain't afeerd ter put her hand tu it."

"Her ma hain't sp'ilt her, that's a fact," said Mr. Crow, modestly. "Thar she comes now," he continued, raising his head, and glancing across the road.

She had been to the spring, and walked briskly up the path and across the dusty road, her sun-bonnet swinging from one hand, a pail of water poised evenly on her head. Her black hair hung in a thick braid down her back, the sun had tanned her skin to a fine brown, but there was a ruddy glow in her cheeks, and full, firm lips. Her bright, steady eyes were dark gray, and when she smiled two rows of even white teeth were disclosed to view.

"A likely" girl indeed, dressed in a neat, clean cotton gown, its clumsy folds not able to hide the graceful development of her figure. She was Jesse Crow's only child, and he regarded her with a just feeling of pride, and, though it had now taken a perplexing turn, felt secretly pleased at her disposition and ability to have her own way. Edwards nodded to her with a friendly smile.

"Mornin', Bet."

"Mornin' Mr. Ed'ards. How's Mis Ed'ards and the chillun?" she inquired in a pleasant, soft-toned voice, pausing at the gate.

"'Bout as common, Bet."

She looked inquiringly at him. Mr. Edwards cleared his throat.

"Now, Bet, you ain't goin' ter be onreasonable 'bout this Fannin scrape, air ye?"

A sudden flush passed over her face, and she lifted the brimming pail from her head and placed it on the fence.

"Depends on what you mean by that, Mr. Ed'ards, hopin' you'll take no offence a-talkin' so plain."

"I mean you ain't a-goin' ter hold up fer him ag'in everybody else, an' pester yer ma an' pa."

Her lips trembled; she looked at her father.

"Pa knows I ain't a-meanin' ter pester him."

"Yes, honey, we know that," he said, her appealing glance melting his heart to tenderness at once. When had he ever failed to respond to her joy or sorrow?

"Now, that's Pink, an' Sile Jill, an' Bill Sanders, an'—"

"Don't be a-namin' Bill Sanders ter me, Mr. Ed'ards, if yer please," she exclaimed quickly.

"But it ain't fair ter be a-blamin' him fer Tom Fannin's fault, Betsy," shaking his head reprovingly.

"How kin I help it, Mr. Ed'ards, when I feel an' know that in some way or other he's the cause o' it?" she cried, with a passionate tremor in her voice. "It ain't a-hurtin' nobody fer me ter b'lieve in Tom, spite o' everything, an' please don't ax me not to, fer I must; I can't help it."

She opened the gate, and took up the pail of water and went on into the house, and a few minutes later the men heard the steady click-clack of the loom.

All day she sat on the high bench, weaving steadily a stripe of blue and a stripe of brown, counting the threads carefully; but her heart lay heavy in her bosom, and her eyes were grave. She had been deeply shocked at the charge against Tom Fannin, but her faith in his honesty remained unshaken. She understood his faults, his weaknesses, but they only appealed to her womanly tenderness. He was generous, honest, and truthful, and if he was not so good-looking or so prosperous as others—Pink Edwards and Bill Sanders, she loved him. The heart of woman is past finding out. Bet Crow might have had pick and choice among the beaux of the settlement, and instead of favoring the suit of one of her smart, industrious lovers, she chose Tom Fannin, the poorest, least fortunate young man in the county. He had a farm, but it did not prosper, and his stock were neglected and shabby.

"He's shiftless," said his neighbors, and Bet knew it to be true, though too loyal even to acknowledge it to any one but herself.

The shadows were growing long across the yard, and the soft lowing of the cows, wending their way home, could be heard, when a step sounded in the entry, and Tom Fannin himself walked into the room where Bet sat weaving.

"Mis' Crow said 'Jest walk right in,'" he said, stopping near the door, holding his hat awkwardly in his hands.

"Tu be shure, Tom," said the girl, feeling his new embarrassment acutely, and longing to put him at his ease and make him understand that story would not change her regard. "Jes' take er cheer."

She did not stop her work, and he drew a chair up near the bench, laid his hat on the floor, and then for the first time looked straightly and frankly at her. His eyes were clear and honest if not handsome. Bet felt his steady look, and flushed, and the hand holding the shuttle trembled slightly.

"You have heard?" he said at last, with a deep, dejected sigh.

"Yes," suddenly facing him and looking into his eyes. They did not waver, though his sunburnt face flushed.

"It wus in my pocket, Bet, but if it's the las' word I'm ever ter say, I don't know how it got thar," he said, solemnly.

"I know'd you didn't do it," she said with generous faith. "Bill Sanders mus' be at the bottom o' it himself."

"I don't know—I don't know nothin' erbout the matter 't all. I can't seem ter understan' why ennybody'd wanter spile my character, I've been shiftless an' lazy, I'll 'low that," humbly, "an' I don't know as you oughter 'a' put up with me, but I never tuk nothin' that didn't berlong ter me, an' never lifted er finger to harm a human creetur."

His voice shook slightly, and he leaned his head upon the weaving bench, his face hidden in a fold of Bet's dress.

She trembled in a passion of tender sympathy; tears filled her eyes, ran down her face, but she would not let a single sob pass her quivering lips. She laid her hand softly on his ruddy hair, and when she could speak without crying, said:

"It'll never make enny difference with me, I don't care what they say."

"But the whole world'll be turnin' ag'in me now, Bet. I've come over to tell you I won't think hard o' yer fer takin' back yer promises," he said with an effort.

"Promises air promises, an' I never make 'em 'thout wantin' ter keep 'em," she said steadily.

He raised his head, he saw the tears on her face, the trembling of her lips, and starting up threw one arm around her, and pressed her head against him.

"God A'mighty bless yer, Bet, honey, for keerin' fer sech a poor creetur as I, when you mought git the best. Ef I don't make somethin' o' myself now arter this, I'll never ax yer to keep yer word," he whispered, passionately pressing his rough cheek against her smooth, warm one.

For a moment the girl did not move, then she gently removed his arm, and sitting upright began to look confusedly for her shuttle, flushing, paling, not daring to meet her lover's eyes.

"Can't nothin' be done to clear up the matter?" she said finally in a low tone.

Fannin shook his head sadly.

"Nothin'; it wus thar, an' I hain't no way o' provin' I didn't put it thar."

That was true, and gossip was rife throughout the settlement, and the members of Cool Spring Church met in solemn conclave to "deal" with the erring young man, who persisted in denying his guilt, thereby adding the sin of a lie to the sin of stealing. He lost his situation on the railroad, he lost his friends, and seemed to sink to the lowest ebb of fortune. But his trials put a new spirit into him, or else called forth a great deal of latent strength, for he met the slights of his associates and neighbors with quiet dignity and went to work energetically on his farm.

"I 'lowed you 'ud be a-huntin' a new home," said one of his neighbors to him, eying him curiously.

"No, I'm goin' ter stay right t' hum," he replied doggedly.

"He's er turrible sinner," said the gossips on learning his determination to remain at his old home.

Those long summer days were wretched ones to Bet Crow. She devised a thousand plans for clearing her lover, but they all came to naught. She firmly believed Bill Sanders had caused the trouble, though why or how she could not determine. He had been one of her most ardent admirers, and betrayed as much anger as disappointment when she refused to "keep cump'ny" with him, but she did not connect that with Tom's disgrace. After that one afternoon visit her lover did not come again to see her, and if they met accidentally at church or elsewhere, they only exchanged the briefest and quietest greeting, but eyes may speak as well as lips, and there were glances eloquent and sweet to both.

Bet did not parade her feelings, and people said she had come to her senses at last, and had sent "that triflin' Tom Fannin erdrift."

One day Bill Sanders stepped boldly up and asked permission to walk home from meeting with her. She curtly refused.

"What's the matter, Bet? It's onjest to treat me in sech er way 'thout er cause," he said in wounded tones.

"You know I can't be a-wantin' enny o' yer comp'ny," she said, and before the righteous anger of her eyes he shrank back abashed.

The summer passed slowly—dewy dawns, languid sunlit noons, and dusky evenings. The corn ripened, and the cotton-fields promised a fair yield. Tom Fannin worked steadily, early and late, as though finding in constant occupation a panacea for his troubles.

"He'll soon git tired o' that; min' what I say," said one prophet, "an' go ter idlin' round ag'in."

But he did not, growing thin and brawny with constant toil. But the change had come too late. The charge of theft could neither be forgiven nor forgotten in that community.

Farmer Crow carefully refrained from mentioning Tom Fannin's name to his daughter since the morning he sat on the fence and talked with Mr. Jim Edwards. But his shrewd, kindly eyes observed the young man's demeanor with approval.

"He's got more grit than we calkerlated on," he mused.

At last he broached the subject to Bet.

"It's a pity Tom Fannin sp'ilt his fortune a-takin' that money; he's a-doin' so mighty well now."

Bet looked reproachfully at him. "How do you know he took it, pa?"

"How do we know he didn't, Bet? Honey, don't be a-deceivin' yerself. I'm mighty proud you have dropped his comp'ny."

"I hain't dropped it, pa. We er jest a-waitin'."

He sighed.

"You air pow'fully sot in yer ways, Bet, fer er young creetur."

"Pa, I mought as well give up livin' as ter give up Tom. You know how 'tis," her eyes traveling to the round, placid face of her mother sitting out in the entry, knitting.

Her father's face softened.

"Well, well, honey, don't do nothin' you'll be sorry fer, that's all I ax. Waitin' is sometimes a mighty tryin' thing."

"But it mus' be better'n not havin' anything ter wait fer," she said, solemnly.

But as time passed monotonously, without bringing any vindication of her lover's name, and hope died slowly and painfully, she learned the bitterness of waiting.

It was "fodder-pullin'" time, and the farmers were out from dawn until evening stripping the yellowing blades from the stalk, tying it, and stacking it in the wide hot fields. The new railroad skirted the western bounds of Mr. Jesse Crow's farm, and through the almost breathless stillness could be heard the ring of hammer and steel from the bridge building over Cool Spring Creek. Some of the strange workmen had a reputation for lawlessness quite shocking to the simple, peaceable country people.

It was about the middle of the afternoon, and Bet Crow was spinning listlessly, while her mother carded the rolls for her. They were not dreaming of any danger, when a man, coatless, hatless, covered with dust, and panting heavily, leaped the fence and ran across the yard. It was Bill Sanders.

"Mis' Crow, for the love of God let me hide in here!" he gasped hoarsely, stumbling over the doorstep, and then staggering into the room.

"Bill Sanders! what on the face o' the yeth!" cried the frightened woman, her fresh-colored face growing pale.

"They air arter me! they mean to kill me!" he panted, crouching under the loom, quivering with exhaustion, wild-eyed with fear.

"Bet, Bet! what does it mean?" exclaimed her mother appealingly.

Bet ran to the door, and shading her eyes with her hand, looked out. Four or five men were running along the road toward the house, searching and cursing fiercely. She had no idea what had happened, but she knew they were workmen from the bridge, and a desperate-looking gang they were to her frightened eyes. For a moment her heart quailed. They might murder her and her mother, as well as Bill Sanders. He was incapable of offering any defense just then, and pity filled her heart. Her eyes flashed; her lips were set in a determined line. They should not get him if she could help it.

"Quick, ma! blow the horn for pa!" she said, then sprang up on a chair and took down her father's shot-gun from over the door, a trusty weapon he loved next to his wife and daughter.

"Don't you come enny nigher till you tell what you want," she said clearly, raising the gun in her none too steady hands as they scrambled over the fence. For a moment they were nonplussed, and stared at her with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty.

"We want the man that's hid in there," said one lowering fellow, fiercely.

"What for?"

"To hang to the nearest tree."

"What's he been a-doin'?"

"Killin' a friend of our'n down on the railroad."

The horror of it almost took her breath, but she maintained her defensive attitude bravely.

"That's er turrible thing," she said, praying that every blast of the horn would bring her father.

"See here, young woman, you'd better get outen that and let us have him. We don't mean no harm to you, but we ain't got time to argue with you."

"I'm plum' sorry for you, but I'm bound ter do what I kin fer the law. We air peaceable folks here, an' like ter be punished 'cordin' ter law. If you'll git the jestice o' the peace an' have Mr. Sanders tuk ter jail, I ain't no objections."

Their wrath was evidently cooling somewhat, and they were forced to a reluctant admiration of her pluck.

If they had known that she was trembling like a leaf, that her arms were feeling nerveless and weak, her eyes dim! She knew that she could not hold out much longer in that threatening attitude. A moment of dead silence fell while the men consulted in whispers, and Bet could hear the deep, hurried breathing of the hidden man, and the horrified moans and ejaculations of her mother with a distinctness absolutely painful to her. But help had come. Her strained eyes wandered despairingly from those dark, angry faces confronting her, and she saw her father and two or three other men coming through the lot.

Matters were at last peaceably adjusted. Mr. Crow argued so mildly and reasonably with the avenging party that they consented—the farmers bearing them company—to take their prisoner and allow the law to deal with him.

"But I'll tell you what, Sanders, you owe your life to that girl. We would 'a' killed you, sure, if she hadn't 'a' stood up in your defense like she did. We didn't want to hurt her," said one of the men grimly, and Sanders groaned heavily. He gave Bet one humbly grateful glance as they led him away.

The whole occurrence occupied but a brief space of time in the bright summer day. The dust settled softly upon the road behind the retreating footsteps of the self-appointed posse and their prisoner, and the crickets shrilling in the grass seemed the only living thing left. Bet sank down on the doorstep, and hid her face in her hands, faint and weak from the strain upon her nerves.

"Drink this, honey, it'll do you good," said her mother, holding a brimming gourd of water to her pale lips, and she drank a little and declared that she felt better.

"Do you s'pose they'll hang him, Bet?" in a fearful whisper.

"I don't know, ma, if he's tuk human life—" she paused with a shudder.

A new sensation had been furnished the settlement, and a far greater one than the mere theft of a little money. The men met to discuss the crime, and the women spoke of it in low, awestruck tones. Then it was discovered that the man had not been killed, but badly wounded and stunned. A quieter spirit prevailed, and when it came out that the stranger had struck the first blow, and that Sanders had only acted on the defensive, the tide of public sympathy turned in his favor.

It does not belong to this story to go into all the details of the trial held at the September term of the county court. It is enough to say the young man was acquitted and walked out of the court-room free, but subdued and quiet. He went direct to Farmer Crow's, and walked into the room where Bet sat with her patchwork. She greeted him with grave kindness, and asked him to sit down, but he declined, preferring to stand. He twisted the flexible willow switch he carried, nervously around in his hands, and swallowed audibly, as though something choked him.

"They'd 'a' tuk my life shure in their first mad fit if it hadn't 'a' been for you, Bet," he said finally, with an effort. "I don't know what to say; I ain't much fer words, but—"

"Please don't say nothin' 'bout it, Bill," she pleaded in great embarrassment. "Folks air a-puttin' what I done up too high. If I helped you it wasn't nothin' more'n duty, seein' as you was plum' tuckered out with runnin'. I'd 'a' done it fer ennybody."

"Don't I know that better'n you, Bet?" he exclaimed bitterly. "Don't I know you can't bear the sight o' me? but I'm a-goin' to show you that I ain't ungrateful fer what you've done fer me."

He passed his hands over his eyes. "Bet, I done somethin' for you that for yer sake I'm now a-goin' ter undo. Next Sunday is meetin' day at Cool Spring, an' I'm a-goin' ter make public acknowledgments o' my temptations, an' the doin's o' Satan in my heart. I've keered for you mighty nigh to the ruination o' my hopes fer a better world. But if God A'mighty kin fergive me, then you kin tu, Bet. Good-evenin'."

He turned to go. She sprang up, scattering her quilt pieces right and left.

"Bill!" she gasped, but he strode hastily out of the room, mounted his horse, and rode away.

The last song had been sung and the congregation at Cool Spring church were about to rise to receive the benediction when Bill Sanders stood up, and clearing his throat, looked around on the people. As he met the curious expectant eyes fixed upon him, he seemed to waver—to flinch from his purpose.

"Now speak out, Brother Sanders," said the pastor encouragingly, and the kindly voice of the old man gave him fresh strength.

"Broth'r'n an' sist'r'n, it becomes my duty ter tell you o' the temptations I've be'n a-fallin' under this year, an' ter ax yer forgiveness an' yer prayers. I've be'n a-wanderin' fur from the right way. I done er turrible thing ter brother Tom Fannin—took away his good name, an' made him a byword an' en example o' evil among you. Fer the sake o' one who it ain't becomin' in me ter name here, an' who ain't ter blame any more'n a innocent child, I 'lowed myself ter hate him—ter wanter cast disfavor 'pon him."

He paused, and a pinfall might have been heard in that church, so intensely quiet, so breathless were the excited people. He looked at Tom Fannin leaning forward eagerly on his seat, then his eyes rested for a moment on Bet Crow's drooping face, and he could almost feel the quick flutter of the pulse in her round soft throat. His eyes sank to the floor; he drew a long breath.

"Broth'r'n, this is er public acknowledgment, an' the solemn, bindin' truth—I put that money in Tom Fannin's pocket with my own hands."

He said no more, but sat down and hid his face in his hands, and a stir and murmur seemed to sweep over the church like a wave. The agitation, excitement, seemed about to break dignified Christian bounds, when Mr. Jesse Crow rose and solemnly said:

"Broth'r'n, we have all heard the public acknowledgments o' Brother Sanders's wrong-doin'. He has tole it 'thout bein' axed, an' o' his own free will an' inclernation. In dealin' with this errin' brother we mus' bear in min' thar air allus extinguishin' sarcumstances surroundin' ever' deed done by weak mortal creeturs, an' a confession o' guilt is er long way to'ards complete repentance."

Well, that public confession was the climax of that year of events in the Cool Spring settlement, if I except the wedding at Mr. Jesse Crow's, later in the season, when house and yard overflowed with guests, and all united in giving a kindly hand and a hearty word to the bridegroom. Bill Sanders was not present. He had gone out West to seek a new home, and let us hope that he was in time as happy as Tom Fannin and his wife, once the belle of Cool Spring settlement—Bet Crow.

SILURY.

STORY OF A MOONSHINER'S DAUGHTER.

Silury Cole threw a fresh pine-knot on the fire and stepped to the door to peer out into the night, listening intently for the first sound of her father's footsteps on the hard mountain road. For two days the revenue officers had been abroad on the mountains, and the hearts of women and children were heavy with terror and dread.

The rich pine kindled, burnt into vivid flame, throwing its light upon the girl from head to foot, on her smooth hair, black as the night, on the profile of her face, denoting unusual character for a girl of fourteen, and on her primitively fashioned gown of blue checked cotton.

The rioting flames, filling the black cavernous depths of the fireplace, lighted up the low room also, throwing grotesque shadows behind the loom and spinning-wheel, lingering round the flaxen heads of the three children asleep on the low trundle bed, glancing over the basket of corn ready to be shelled for the miller, and over the table and simple preparations for supper.

Mrs. Cole sat in the corner at one end of the flat stone hearth, smoking and silently brooding. She was a small, sickly looking woman with sunken eyes and sharp, delicate features. She leaned forward with her chin resting in one hand, staring into the fire. A stick of wood burned apart and fell softly to the coals underneath. She started and glanced at Silury.

"Is he comin', Silury?"

"Not yet, ma."

She refilled her pipe and laid a glowing coal on it, shaking her head slowly.

"An' not likely to till the revenue men have gone away."

"Ah, but don't you know, ma, pa never stays away mor'n two days at a time? Recollect the time he come a-whistlin' with his gun on his shoulder, an' the raiders just down on the mill road," said Silury, and laughed at the remembrance of his daring. "Pa ain't easily scared."

"That's so, an' I remember that he was mighty hungry, too," murmured her mother, a faint smile, for a moment, lighting up her prematurely wrinkled face.

Silury glanced over her shoulder at the oven of potatoes steaming on the hearth, and the frying-pan filled with fresh-cut rashers of bacon ready to place over the fire. Her preparations were all complete. When he came it would take but a few minutes to place a smoking hot supper, such as he loved, before him.

"Are the children covered up?" her mother inquired, glancing toward the bed. "These October nights are gettin' cold."

Silury stepped across the room and tucked the cover around the young sleepers. No wonder her face had such a mature look—she moved with such a womanly air—the cares of the household nearly all fell upon her. She was the pride of her father's heart, her mother depended on her, and the younger children always looked to her to supply their needs. Mrs Cole relapsed into her former attitude, for a few minutes, then suddenly raised her head, a look of fear flashing into her dull eyes. "Silury, it 'pears to me I hear somethin'," she whispered quickly.

The girl hurried back to the door, and leaned out again, her head slightly bent, one hand lifted to her ear in a listening attitude. A gust of wind swept down the black serried peaks, so high above the small cabin, so sharply cut against the starlit sky, hurrying on its erratic course to the valley. The cow munched dry corn husks in a corner of the fence, and Kit, the mule, pawed restlessly at the stable door. But none of those sounds had disturbed Mrs. Cole, roused that fear in her. Far away Silury heard the steady beat of hoofs upon the dry, hard road, as of a horse newly shod, and urged to his utmost speed.

"I 'low it's only somebody ridin' fer the doctor," she said soothingly, but a line, drawn by keenest anxiety, appeared between her dark brows. The sound came upward from the valley, not downward from the mountains. It drew nearer each moment, bringing glad or evil tidings to some lone dweller on the heights, for no one ever traveled over the mountains in that way simply for the pleasure of it. How swift, how steady, fell the iron-shod feet upon the earth! now clear and distinct, as they passed along a ridge, now almost lost as they plunged into a ravine. The big liver-colored hound, lying on the doorstep, stood up, sniffed the air, and howled mournfully.

"It may be the raiders," muttered Mrs. Cole restlessly.

"Or somebody's dead, an' they er comin' fer their folks," said Silury in awed tones.

She could hear the heavy panting of the horse, as, with slackened gait, he came up the hollow below the house, and see an outline of the rider as they turned the lot fence; then, as they crossed the narrow path of light projected from the doorway beyond the low yard fence, she recognized a valley neighbor. He scarcely halted, as he excitedly cried:

"Silury, the raiders got yer pa—took him over in Jimson's Brake, along with Peleg White, an' one o' the Davis boys. They'll pass Buckhorn Springs to-night."

And then he went on his way, to carry the sad news to more remote habitations; and great silence seemed to fall upon the mountain-side. Silury and her mother looked speechlessly at one another, then Mrs. Cole passed a trembling hand confusedly over her face.

"What all did he say, Silury? It 'pears to me my understandin' ain't quite clear to-night."

"He said—" she caught her breath in a sob. "Oh, ma! the raiders have took pa; what shall we do, what shall we do? Poor pa! it will kill him to be put in prison!" in a burst of despairing anguish.

Mrs. Cole crouched lower in her chair.

"I knew it would come. I've been a-feelin' it here for a long time—a long time," one thin hand groping for her heart. "Yes, he'll pine fer his freedom an' the mountings when he's shut up in jail. Oh, I've begged him not to be a moonshiner—not to make whiskey on the sly. They all have to suffer fer it sooner or later." Her wandering, tearful eyes fell on the waiting supper. "How hungry he must be!"

There were no noisy demonstrations, but a grief, pathetic as it was deep. They were mountaineers, patient by nature, and schooled by all the circumstances of life to endure and be strong. The law does not punish the moonshiner alone, but it falls heavily on his wife and children. Silury dried her eyes and touched her mother on the shoulder, speaking in a firmer tone:

"I must go down to Buckhorn Springs to-night, ma."

"Eh?" said the dazed woman.

"I must see pa; I must help him to get away from the raiders."

"You, Silury! How'll you do it?"

"I don't know," her lips trembling again, "but I must do it—I must!"

Mrs. Cole stared at her. She had faith in Silury's courage and ability, but now she caught the girl's hand, fresh terror seizing her.

"Don't you get into trouble, honey. Me an' the children would perish if your pa an' you were both took off."

"Don't you fret, ma; I'll come back to you an' bring pa, too."

"How'll you get to Buckhorn Springs?"

"Ride Kit."

She was already down on her knees before the fire, kindling a torch to take out to the lot with her. She looked up at her mother with brave, tender eyes.

"Now, don't pester yerself any more'n you can help, ma."

Mrs. Cole shook her head with a deep sigh, and instinctively reached for her pipe, but she could only sit and hold it in her hand, unfilled, unlighted, while Silury went away to the lot with the flaring torch and an old saddle thrown on her arm.

Kit was a shabby beast, thin, wiry, and with only one good eye, but he had served the Coles faithfully. He greeted the young girl with a gentle whinny, and she leaned her head against him with another burst of tears. But she quickly wiped them away, and led Kit out to the road. It did not take her long to put bridle and saddle on him, then she ran in, took down her father's rifle from the rack over the front door, and in a few minutes had started on her solitary ride down the mountains. The hound would have followed her, but she ordered him back. "Go back, Bolivar, an' take care o' them that's left behind," and he slunk unwillingly to the doorstep again.

It was a night to live in the child's memory all her life, for with all her fearlessness and hard training she had never before been called upon to traverse the mountain passes alone after darkness had fallen upon them. Solitude and gloom surrounded her. The valley seemed but a formless gulf of darkness, the multitudinous mountains, black sentinels, towering to the stars. Far away in some remote fastness of the mountains a dog barked, and she could hear the prolonged blast of a hunting horn. A star shot downward from the zenith, leaving a trail of fire across the sky, and was lost behind the far-reaching western ranges. A sense of isolation oppressed her. She seemed the only living human creature in all the vast, silent world. On the saddle in front of her she held the trusty rifle, and that gave her a sense of security from beasts of prey. Her father had taught her how to use the gun, and practice had given her an almost unerring aim. But my young readers will acknowledge that it was a trying situation for even a mountain girl, to ride alone through ravines and over declivities, often only a bridle path to guide her. It required a brave heart and a steady nerve.

Buckhorn Springs are on the public highway leading from a market town in North Georgia to Murphy, North Carolina, and traditions of the wonderful medicinal qualities of the water come down, even from the remote days when the Indian set up the poles of his wigwam near the springs, and slaked his thirst in their cool, healing streams, flowing out from under Buckhorn Mountain. The Indian and his wigwam are mere traditions now themselves, and the white man and his covered market wagon have taken their places. It has been the favorite camping-ground of the mountaineers coming from or going to market since the first white settlers boldly penetrated the wilderness beyond. Campers were there the night the revenue officers were to pass with Amaziah Cole, Peleg White, and young Davis. They were on the roadside, their white covered wagon drawn out under the sparse timber, their sleek red oxen lying unyoked near it. A camp-fire of brushwood and pine-knots blazed up in the open space between the timber and the road, throwing strange eerie shadows against the mountain-side, and in the tree-tops above.

A lean, brown-faced wagoner sat on an inverted feed-box whittling a stick, and a woman occupied a rude camp-stool nearer the fire, the light bringing out the stripes in her brown and yellow homespun skirts, and the melancholy lines in her sharp-featured face. A brown woolen veil was tied around her head, and she rubbed snuff with subdued enjoyment. Silury did not go down to the public road. On the mountain-side, above the springs, a ledge of gray rocks jutted out. Dismounting at a level spot in the pathway, Silury tied Kit's bridle to an overhanging bough, then with the gun grasped in her hands, she crept through the underbrush to the rocks. She trembled with excitement, for a daring thought had come to her—a scheme whereby she might deliver her father from his captors. She crouched down behind the rocks, and waited, praying that she might be calm, that her eye might be true, her hand steady when the time came.

Evidently the campers had heard of the raid, and were intending to sit up until the officers passed with the prisoners, for several times, during that lagging hour of suspense Silury spent behind the boulders, the man walked out into the road to listen for sounds of travel.

"I 'low they are comin' at last," he said, closing his knife with a sharp click, and his wife put up her snuff-box and joined him on the roadside.

Silury's heart gave a great thump, thump, against her side. She started into a more erect position, bringing the barrel of her rifle to a level with the rock. The tramping sound of horses' feet could be distinctly heard on the road, and presently the cavalcade rode up, the prisoners in the middle. The officers were feeling comparatively secure. No rescue had ever been attempted at Buckhorn Springs. Friends of prisoners had sometimes ambushed in the wilder country above, but this raid had been unmolested. They had been riding hard, and so they halted for a few minutes at the springs, and some of them dismounted for a drink.

Silury saw her father astride a powerful mule, his hands tied together, but his lower limbs free. He looked haggard and unkempt, his long, black hair falling to his shoulders, his beard tangled. He bore the marks of his sojourn in Jimson's Brake, and of his resistance to arrest.

"Poor pa!"

Did he hear that trembling, pitying whisper? He threw up his head, his black, deep-set eyes flashing an eager glance around. The officer at his side fell back a little to speak to a comrade. It was the girl's chance. She suddenly rose head and shoulders above the rocks, the camp-fire shining on her white face and bare head.

"Look out, pa! look out!" she screamed in shrill, piercing tones, and fired.

He saw her, read her purpose and, as the animal under him staggered and fell, he leaped from its back like a panther, and disappeared in the underbrush.

It was all so quick, so unexpected! Through the curling wreath of smoke from the rifle, Silury's face appeared for a moment to the amazed eyes of the officers; then they realized what had happened, and fearing a stronger attack, put spurs to their horses and hustled their other prisoners away, leaving the dead mule in the road.

The next morning, as the rising sun gilded the mountain tops with gold, the revenue officers rode through the streets of the market town with two prisoners, telling a thrilling story of the moonshiners' ambush at Buckhorn Springs and the escape of Amaziah Cole.

It was about that same time that Silury stood again on the doorstep of home, her face aglow, her eyes radiant, in spite of the sleepless night spent abroad on the mountains. Bolivar crouched against her feet, or licked her hands in his joy at her return, but she scarcely noticed him. She was looking at the unfinished supper, cold on the hearth, the gray, fireless ashes in the deep fireplace, and her mother asleep in her chair.

"Wake up, ma! wake up!" she cried, joyously; "pa is here!"

Mrs. Cole started up and rubbed her eyes as she saw her husband and daughter standing in the doorway. "Did I dream it all?" she murmured helplessly. "I thought the raiders were takin' you to jail, Amaziah."

"So they were, an' I'd be there right now ef—" he stopped, choked with emotion, and his hand stroked Silury's head.

"An' he's never goin' to be a moonshiner again, ma, never! Ain't we glad!" and Silury slipped across the floor to wake the younger children. Her father's proud eyes followed her.

"It's all owin' to you, all owin' to you, Silury."

'ZEKI'L.

He lived alone in a weather-beaten log-cabin built on the roadside at the edge of a rocky, sterile field, with a few stunted peach-trees growing around it, and a wild grape-vine half covering the one slender oak shading the front yard. The house consisted of only one room, with a wide, deep fireplace in the north end, and a wide window to the south. The logs had shrunk apart, leaving airy cracks in the walls, and the front door creaked on one hinge, the other having rusted away.

But 'Zeki'l Morgan's ambition seemed satisfied when he came into possession of the house, the unproductive clearing around it, and the narrow strip of woodland bounding the richer farm beyond. From the cabin door could be seen the broken, picturesque hills marking the course of the Etowah River, with the Blue Ridge Mountains far beyond, and the Long Swamp range rising in the foreground.

Very little of 'Zeki'l's past history was known in Zion Hill settlement. He had walked into Mr. Davy Tanner's store one spring day, a dusty, penniless tramp, his clothes hanging loosely from his stooping shoulders, a small bundle in one hand, a rough walking-stick in the other. Mr. Davy Tanner was a soft-hearted old man, and the forlorn, friendless stranger appealed strangely to his sympathy, in spite of his candid statement that he had just finished a five-years' term in the penitentiary for horse-stealing.

"I tell you this, not because I think it's anything to boast of, but because I don't want to 'pear like I'm deceivin' folks," he said in a dejected, melancholy tone, his face twitching, his eyes cast down. It was a haggard face, bleached to a dull pallor by prison life, every feature worn into deep lines. Evidently he had suffered beyond the punishment of the law, though how far it had eaten into his soul no man would ever learn, for after that simple statement of his crime and his servitude as a convict, he did not again, even remotely, touch upon his past, nor the inner history of his life. No palliative explanations were offered, no attempts made to soften the bare, disgraceful truth.

Mr. Davy Tanner was postmaster as well as merchant, and his store was the general rendezvous for the settlement. The women came to buy snuff, and thread, and such cheap, simple materials as they needed for Sunday clothes; the men to get newspapers and the occasional letters coming for them, besides buying sugar and coffee, and talking over the affairs of the county and of Zion Hill church.

They looked on 'Zeki'l Morgan with distrust and contempt, and held coldly aloof from him. But at last a farmer, sorely in need of help, ventured to hire him, after talking it over with Mr. Davy Tanner.

"I tell you there ain't a mite o' harm in him."

"S'pose he runs away with my horse, Mr. Tanner?"

"I'll stand for him ef he does," said Mr. Davy Tanner, firmly. "I don't know any more th'n you about him, but I'm willin' to trust him."

"That's the way you treat most o' the folks that come about you," said his neighbor, smiling.

"Well, I ain't lost anything by it. It puts a man on his mettle to trust him—gives him self-respect, if there's any good in him."

All the year 'Zeki'l filled a hireling's place, working faithfully; but the next year he bought a steer, a few sticks of furniture, and, renting the cabin and rocky hillside from Mr. Davy Tanner, set up housekeeping, a yellow cur and an old violin his companions. Then he managed to buy the place, and settled down. On one side he had the Biggers place, a fine, rich farm, and on the other Mr. Davy Tanner's store and Zion Hill church. He attended the church regularly, but always sat quietly, unobtrusively in a corner, an alien, a man forever set apart from other men.

As the years passed, openly expressed distrust and prejudice died out, though he was never admitted to the inner life of the settlement. He did not seem to expect it, going his way quietly, and ever maintaining an impenetrable reserve about his own private history. Not even Mr. Davy Tanner could win him from that reticence, much as he desired to learn all about those long years of penal servitude and the life concealed behind them. He seemed to be without any ties of kindred or friendship, for the mail never brought anything to him, not even a newspaper.

"A DUSTY, PENNILESS TRAMP."

But he seemed a kindly natured man, with a vein of irrepressible sociability running through him, in spite of his solitary ways of life. There were glimpses of humor occasionally, and had it not been for that cloud of shame hanging forbiddingly over him, he would have become a favorite with his neighbors.

Across the road, opposite his house, he set up a small blacksmith shop, and much of his idle time he spent in there, mending broken tools, sharpening dull plows, hammering patiently on the ringing red-hot iron. The smallest, simplest piece of work received the most careful attention, and the farmers recognized and appreciated his conscientiousness.

One summer afternoon, as he was plowing in his cotton-field, a neighbor came along the road and, stopping at the fence, hailed him. He plowed to the end of the row, and halted.

"Good evenin', 'Zeki'l," said the man, mounting to the top of the fence, and sitting with his heels thrust through a crack in the lower rails.

"Howdy you do, Marshall? What's the news down your way?" 'Zeki'l inquired, drawing his shirt-sleeve across his face, and leaning on the plow-handles.

"I don't know as there's much to tell. Billy Hutchins an' Sary Ann McNally run away an' got married last night, an' old Mis' Gillis is mighty nigh dead with the ja'nders. A punkin couldn't look yallerer." He opened his knife, and ran his fingers along the rail in search of a splinter to whittle. "Old man Biggers has sold his place at last."

"Has he?"

"Yes; I met him down at the store, an' he said the trade had been made."

"He's bound to go to Texas."

"Yes; so he 'lows."

"Well, old Georgy is good enough for me," 'Zeki'l remarked, with a pleased glance at his sterile fields.

"An' for me," said Marshall, heartily. "Wanderin' 'round don't make folks rich. Biggers owns the best place in this settlement, an' he'd better stay on it. It won't do to believe all the tales they tell about these new States. I had a brother go to Louisiany before the war. Folks said, 'Don't take anything with you; why, money mighty nigh grows on bushes out there.' His wife took the greatest pride in her feather beds, but what would be the use o' haulin' them beds all the way across the Mississippi, when you could rake up feathers by the bushel anywheres? Well, they went, an' for the whole endurin' time they stayed they had to sleep on moss mattresses, an' my brother 'lowed it was about the meanest stuff to kill he ever struck. If you didn't bile it, an' bury it, an' do the Lord only knows what to it, it would grow an' burst out of the beds when you was sleepin' on 'em." 'Zeki'l's attention did not follow those reminiscent remarks. "Who bought the Biggers place?" he inquired, as soon as Marshall ceased speaking.

"A man he met in Atlanta when he went down the last time, a man from one of the lower counties, an' his name—why, yes, to be sure, it's Morgan, same as yours—'Lijy Morgan. May be you know him?" with a sharp, questioning glance.

But the momentary flush of emotion that the stranger's name had called to 'Zeki'l's face was gone.

"I don't know as I do," he slowly replied, staring at a scrubby cotton-stalk the muzzled ox was making ineffectual attempts to eat.

"I 'lowed may be he might be some kin to you," said Marshall, in a baffled tone.

"I don't know as he is," said 'Zeki'l, still in that slow, dry, non-committal tone, his eyes leaving the cotton-stalk to follow the swift, noiseless flight of a cloud-shadow across a distant hillside. "Morgan isn't an uncommon name, you know."

"That's so," reluctantly admitted Marshall.

"When does Mr. Biggers think o' goin' to Texas?"

"Oh, not until after crops are gathered."

"The other family, isn't to come, then, right away?"

"No; not till fall."

After Marshall had whittled, and gossiped, and gone his way, 'Zeki'l stood a long time with his hands resting on the plow-handles, his brows drawn together in deep thought. Some painful struggle seemed to be going on. The crickets shrilled loudly in the brown sedge bordering a dry ditch, and a vulture sailed majestically round and round above the field, his broad black wings outspread on the quivering air. The cloud-shadows on the river-hills assumed new form, shifted, swept away, and others came in their places, and the vulture had become a mere speck, a floating mote in the upper sunlight, before he turned the patient ox into another furrow, murmuring aloud:

"I didn't go to them, an' if they come to me, I can't help it. I am not to blame; the Almighty knows I'm not to blame;" and his overcast face cleared somewhat.

That night when Mr. Davy Tanner closed his store and went home, he said to his wife:

"'Zeki'l Morgan must be lonesome, or pestered about somethin'. You'd think that old fiddle o' his could talk an' cry too, from the way he's playin'."

The season advanced; crops were gathered, and the shorn fields looked brown and bare. A sere, withering frost touched the forests, and the leaves fell in drifts, while the partridge called to his mate from fence and sedgy covert. A light snowfall lay on the distant mountains when the Biggerses started to the West and the new family of Morgans moved into Zion Hill settlement.

It was the third day after their arrival. 'Zeki'l leaned over the front gate with an armful of corn, feeding two fat pigs, when 'Lijy Morgan passed along the road on his way to Mr. Davy Tanner's store. He was a strong-looking, well-built man, with rugged features and hair partly gray. He looked curiously at the solitary, stooping figure inside the gate, his steps slackened, then he stopped altogether, a grayish pallor overspreading the healthy, ruddy hue of his face.

"'Zeki'l!"

'Zeki'l dropped the corn, and thrust open the gate.

"Howdy you do, 'Lijy?"

"HOWDY YOU DO, 'LIJY?"

Their hands met in a quick, close grip, then fell apart.

"I like not to have known you, 'Zeki'l, it was so unexpected seein' you here," said 'Lijy, huskily, scanning the worn, deeply lined face before him with glad yet shrinking gaze.

"An' twelve years make a great difference in our looks sometimes, though you are not so much changed," said 'Zeki'l quietly. He had been prepared for the meeting, and years of self-mastery had given him the power of concealing emotion.

"Twelve years? Yes; but it has seemed like twenty to me since—since it all happened. Why didn't you come home, 'Zeki'l, when your time was out?"

"I 'lowed the sight o' me wouldn't be good for you, 'Lijy; an'—an' the old folks were gone."

"Yes; it killed them, 'Zeki'l, it killed them," in a choked voice.

"I know," said 'Zeki'l, hastily, his face blanching; "an' I thought it would be best to make a new start in a new settlement."

"Do the folks here know?"

"That I served my time? Yes; but that's all. When I heard that you had bought the Biggers place I studied hard about movin' away, but I like it here. It's beginnin' to seem like home."

'Lijy stared at the poor cabin, the stunted, naked peach-trees, so cold and dreary-looking in the wintry dusk.

"Is it yours, 'Zeki'l?"

"Yes; it's mine, all mine. Come in and sit awhile with me, an' warm. It's goin' to be a nippin' cold night."

He turned, and 'Lijy silently followed him across the bare yard and into the house. A flickering fire sent its warm glow throughout the room, touching its meagre furnishing with softening grace, but a chill struck to 'Lijy Morgan's heart as he crossed the threshold—a chill of desolation.

"Do you live here alone?"

"Yes; all alone, except Rover and the fiddle."

The cur rose up from the hearth with a wag of his stumpy tail, and gave the visitor a glance of welcome from his mild, friendly eyes.

There were only two chairs in the room, and 'Zeki'l placed the best one before the fire for his guest, then threw on some fresh pieces of wood. Outside the dusky twilight deepened to night, the orange glow fading from the west, and the stars shining brilliantly through the clear atmosphere. The chill wind whistled around the chimney-corners and through the chinks in the log walls.

Between the men a constrained silence fell. The meeting had been painful beyond the open acknowledgment of either. The dog crept to his master's side and thrust his nose into his hand. The touch roused 'Zeki'l. From the jamb he took a cob pipe and a twist of tobacco.

"Will you smoke, 'Lijy?"

"I believe not; but I'll take a chew."

He cut off a liberal mouthful, and then 'Zeki'l filled and lighted his pipe. It seemed to loosen his tongue somewhat.

"Is Marthy Ann well enough?"

"She's tolerable."

"How many children have you?"

"Three; the girls, Cynthy an' Mary—"

"I remember them."

"An' little Zeke."

'Zeki'l's face flushed.

"Named him for me, 'Lijy?"

"Yes; for you. Cynthy's about grown now, an' a likely girl, I can tell you."

His face softened; his eyes grew bright with pride and tenderness as he spoke of his children. 'Zeki'l watched him, noting the change in his countenance, and perhaps feeling some pain and regret that he had missed such pleasure. 'Lijy reached out his hand and laid it on his knee. "'Zeki'l, you must come live with us now. I'll tell these folks we are brothers, an'—"

"I don't know as I would," said 'Zeki'l, gently. "It would only make talk, an' I'm settled here, you know."

His unimpassioned tone had its effect on his brother. He protested, but rather faintly, finally saying:

"Well, if you'd rather not—"

"That's just it. I'd rather not."

They both rose, and 'Lijy groped uncertainly for his hat.

"Your life ain't worth much to you, 'Zeki'l, I know it ain't," with uncontrollable emotion.

"It's worth more 'n you think, 'Lijy, more 'n you think."

He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and cleared his throat as though to speak again, but his brother had reached the door before he called to him.

"'Lijy."

"Well?"

"What became o' 'Lizabeth?"

"She's still livin' with us."

He peered into the bowl of the pipe.

"She's never married?"

"No. She had a fall about ten years ago which left her a cripple, an' she's grayer than I am. You 're not comin' to see us, 'Zeki'l?"

"I reckon not, 'Lijy." And while 'Lijy stumbled through the darkness home—his errand to the store forgotten—'Zeki'l stood before the fire, one arm resting against the black, cobwebby mantel. "Crippled an' gray! O 'Lizabeth, 'Lizabeth!" he groaned, and put his head down on his arm, the twelve years rolling backward upon him.

"Where have you been, 'Lijy?" exclaimed Mrs. Morgan when her husband returned. "We waited an' waited for you, till the supper was spoiled."

"I met a man I used to know," he said, evasively, casting a wistful, troubled glance toward the corner where 'Lizabeth, his wife's sister, sat knitting, a crutch lying at her side.

Cynthia, a rosy, merry-eyed girl, laughed.

"Pa is always meetin' a man he knows."

Mrs. Morgan began hastily removing the covered dishes from the hearth to the table.

"Well, where is the sugar you went over to the store to get?" she demanded with some irritation.

"I forgot it, Marthy. I'll go for it in the mornin'," in a confused, propitiatory tone.

She stared at him.

"I never! Forgot what you went after! You beat all, 'Lijy Morgan; you certainly do beat all."

"The man must 'a' sent your wits wool-gatherin', pa," cried Cynthia, jocosely.

'Lizabeth leaned forward. Her face was long, thin, and pale, and the smooth hair framing it glinted like silver in the firelight; but her dark eyes were wonderfully soft and beautiful, and her mouth had chastened, tender lines about it.

"Are you sick, 'Lijy?" she inquired, in a gentle, subdued voice, a voice with much underlying, patient sweetness in it.

Morgan gave her a grateful look. "N—no; but I don't think I care for any supper," he said slowly. "I'll step out an' see if the stock has all been fed."

When he returned Mrs. Morgan sat by the fire alone. He looked hastily about the room.

"Where is Cynthy?"

"Gone to bed."

"An' 'Lizabeth?"

"She's off, too."

He drew a sigh of relief, and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze.

"Marthy Ann, it was 'Zeki'l I saw this evenin'."

She dropped the coarse garment she was mending.

"'Zeki'l!"

"Hush! Yes; he lives up on the hill between here an' the store;" and then he went on to tell her about their meeting and conversation. Her hard, sharp-featured face softened a little when he came to 'Zeki'l's refusal to live with them or to have their kinship acknowledged.

"I'm glad to see he's got that much consideration. We left the old place because folks couldn't forget how he'd disgraced himself; an' to come right where he is! I never heard of anything like it. Why didn't he leave the State if he wanted to save us more trouble?" wiping tears of vexation from her eyes. "You spent nearly all you had to get him out of prison, an' when he had to go to the penitentiary it killed his pa an' ma, an'—"

"Be silent, woman! you don't know what you are talkin' about!" he said sternly, writhing in his chair like a creature in bodily pain. "God A'mighty forgive me!" He paused, smote his knee with his open palm, and turned his face away.

"Well, if I don't know what I'm talkin' about, I'd like to know the reason!" she cried, with the same angry excitement. "You ain't been like the same man you were before that happened, you know you ain't. I'll never be willin' to claim kin with 'Zeki'l Morgan again, never! Folks may find out for themselves; an' they'll do it soon enough—don't you be pestered—soon enough."

But not a suspicion of the truth seemed to occur to Zion Hill settlement. The Morgans were welcomed with great friendliness, and 'Zeki'l alone failed to visit them. Children sat around his brother's fireside, a wife ministered to him; but he had forfeited all claim to such homely joys. The girls had evidently been informed of his relationship to them, for they looked askance at him as they passed along the road, pity and curiosity in their eyes. Once he came out of the blacksmith shop, and, meeting his sister-in-law in the roadway, stopped her, or she would have passed with averted head.

"You needn't be so careful, Marthy Ann," he said, without the slightest touch of bitterness in his calm tone.

"It is for the children's sake, 'Zeki'l," she said, her sallow face flushing with a feeling akin to shame. "I must think o' them."

He gave her a strange glance, then looked to the ground.

"I know; I thought o' them years ago."

"It's a pity you didn't think before—"

"Yes, so it is; but some deeds aren't to be accounted for, nor recalled either, no matter how deeply we repent."

"We sold out for the children's sake, but, Lord! I'm pestered now more than ever."

"Because I'm here?"

"Well, it ain't reasonable to think we can all go right on livin' here, an' folks not find out you an' 'Lijy are brothers."

"What would you like for me to do, Marthy Ann?"

She hesitated a moment, then drew a little nearer to him.

"Couldn't you go away? You've got nobody but yourself to think about, an' I know in reason 'Lijy would be glad to buy your place," with a careless, half-contemptuous glance at the cabin.

A dull flush passed over his face; his mouth twitched.

"Does 'Lijy want me to go?"

"He ain't said so; but—"

"I'll think about it," he said slowly, turning back to the smithy, where a red-hot tool awaited his hammer.

But thinking about it only seemed to bind his heart more closely than ever to the arid spot he called home. He had looked forward to spending all the remaining years of his broken, ruined life there, far from the world and from those who had known him in the past. Then a great desire had risen within him to remain near 'Lizabeth. He shrank from the thought of meeting her, speaking to her, and felt rather glad that she did not appear at church. A few times in passing he had caught a glimpse of her walking about the yard or garden in the winter sunshine, leaning on her crutch, and the sight had sent him on his way with downcast face. He had just sat down before the fire to smoke one evening when there came a timid knock on the door. It was just between daylight and darkness, and he supposed it to be some neighbor on his way to or from the store who wished to drop in to warm himself and gossip a little.

"Come in," he said hospitably, and, reaching out, drew the other chair nearer the fire.

The latch was slowly lifted, the door swung open, and then he started to his feet, pipe and tobacco falling to the floor, while his face flushed and paled, and his breath came in a sharp sigh. It was 'Lizabeth, her bonnet pushed back, her shawl hanging loosely around her shoulders.

"I've be'n to the store for Marthy Ann, I wanted to go to get out away from the house a little while, and I thought I'd step in for a minute, 'Zeki'l, to see you."

"You are tired; come an' sit down," he said huskily, and led her to the chair.

"DO YOU THINK YOUR LAMENESS WOULD MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?"

What emotion those simple, commonplace words covered! They looked at each other, silently noting the changes time and sorrow had wrought. They had never been openly declared lovers, but words were not needed for them to understand each other, and they knew that they would marry when she had finished her term as teacher in the county school, and he had built a house on the lot of land his father had given him. But that shameful, undenied accusation of horse-stealing, followed swiftly by trial and conviction, had put an end to all hopes, all plans.

"You see I'm a cripple now, 'Zeki'l," she said, to break the silence.

"An' I've grown old," he replied, and their eyes met again in a long, eloquent, steadfast gaze, and they knew that neither age, nor affliction, nor shame, nor separation had wrought any change in their love. It had only grown stronger and deeper. Her thin face flushed, her trembling fingers gathered up a fold of her gown.

"Why don't you come to see us, 'Zeki'l?"

"I can't, 'Lizabeth; I can't. It wouldn't be right. Don't you know I've been longin' to come, an' hungerin' an' hungerin' to see you?" He flung himself on the floor at her feet, his face hidden against her knees. "You don't know all! you don't know all!" The words were wrung from him by an almost uncontrollable desire to tell her the story of his sufferings. She had not turned against him nor forgotten him. It was almost more than he could bear, to read in her eyes her faith and her pardon. He felt the touch of her hand on his bared head, and tears gushed from his eyes.

"Can't you tell me?" she whispered, her face, her eyes, illumined by a pity and tenderness divine in their beauty.

"No, honey; it's somethin' I must bear alone, I must bear alone."

He rose to his feet again, brushing his sleeve across his eyes, and she stood up also, leaning on her crutch, the transient glow of color fading from her face.

"You shouldn't bear it alone if I didn't have this lameness. You—"

"Hush!" he said, and, taking her hand, pressed it against his breast. "Do you think your lameness would make any difference? Wouldn't I love you all the more, take care o' you all the better, for it? It's the disgrace, the shame, standin' between us. I'll never outlive it—get rid of it—an' I'll never ask any woman to share it. I couldn't."

Her physical infirmity held her silent. She would be a care and a burden to him rather than a help. She drew up her shawl.

"The Almighty comfort you, 'Zeki'l."

"An' take care o' you, 'Lizabeth."

He took her hand in a grasp painful in its closeness, then he turned and leaned against the mantel, and she went softly out of the room.

Winter passed. The frost-bound earth sent up faint scents and sounds of spring in fresh-plowed fields and swelling buds. 'Zeki'l wandered about his fields in idleness, striving to make up his mind to go away. It would be best, yet the sacrifice seemed cruel.

"It is more than I can bear," he cried aloud one night, and strained one of the violin-strings until it snapped asunder. He laid the instrument across his knees and leaned his head upon it. The candle burned dimly, and a bat flew in through the open door, circled around the room, at last extinguishing the feeble light with one of its outspread wings. But the unhappy man did not heed the gloom. Why should he care to have a light for his eyes when his soul was in such darkness? He groped his way to the bed, and fell down upon it. Rover came back from a nightly prowl, barked to let his master know of his presence, then lay down on the doorstep.

The sound of music vibrated through the air, and 'Zeki'l remembered that the young people of the settlement were to have a "singing" at his brother's that evening. He raised his head and listened. They were singing hymns, and many of them were associated with recollections of his own youth. A line of Tom Moore's "Come, ye disconsolate," once a special favorite when sorrow seemed far from him, was borne to his ears:

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

He lay down and slept.

At dusk the next evening, as he was heating a piece of iron in the blacksmith shop, a man stopped at the wide-open door.

"Will you give me a night's lodging? I have walked far to-day, and I'm a stranger in this part of the country."

'Zeki'l wheeled, the light from the forge shining across his face. It brought out the stranger's face and form in bold relief also. "Why, it's Zeke Morgan!" he cried, walking into the shop.

"Yes: I thought I recognized your voice, Miller," said 'Zeki'l, slowly, and without much pleasure at the recognition.

They had been in prison together, and 'Zeki'l had left Miller there. He had never felt any liking for the man, and less now than ever, as he looked at his ragged clothing and dissipated face. He had evidently been steadily sinking in vice, and its repulsiveness was impressed upon his outward being. But a certain pity stirred 'Zeki'l's heart. He remembered his own friendlessness when he entered that settlement. Could he show less mercy than had been shown to him?

"Sit down, won't you?" he said kindly, blowing up the coals in the forge to a glowing heat.

"That I will. I'm footsore, and hungry as a bear. I'm in luck to meet with you, comrade," chuckling.

'Zeki'l winced. The man's familiarity grated upon him.

"Where are you goin'?" he inquired.

"Oh, nowhere in particular. I'm jest out."

"Why, I thought your time would be up in two years after I left."

Miller shrugged his shoulders. "Yes; but I made so many attempts to escape that they kept adding extra time to my term."

He sat down while 'Zeki'l finished his work.

"You seem to be getting on pretty well," he continued, his restless eyes scanning the surroundings.

"Only tolerable."

Two or three of the neighbors dropped in, one to leave a broken plow, another to tell a bit of gossip. They stared curiously at 'Zeki'l's disreputable companion, who jocosely informed them that Morgan had once been his chum.

'Zeki'l felt annoyed, and, closing up the shop, invited his guest into the house. They had supper, then sat down and smoked. Miller talked a good deal, and asked many questions about the neighborhood and the store; but at last he fell asleep, huddled up on the bed, and 'Zeki'l lay down on a bench, recollections of his prison life keeping him awake far into the night. When he awoke the next morning his guest was gone. He was glad of it. The man's presence oppressed him—brought a sense of degradation. But what were his feelings when he heard that Mr. Davy Tanner's store had been robbed, the mail-box rifled, letters torn open, and various articles of wearing apparel taken!

He grew so pale, seemed so agitated and confused, that the man who had come up to tell the news stared wonderingly, half-suspiciously at him. He had brought the plow to the shop the evening before, and he now looked around for the stranger.

"Where is your friend?" he inquired.

"He is no friend of mine."

"But he 'lowed that he knew you."

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In prison," said 'Zeki'l, quietly, though he flushed with shame.

"Aha! I lowed so, I jest 'lowed so, last night."

'Zeki'l tingled all over. He had never felt the degradation of being a convict more keenly than at that moment. He suspected Miller of the theft: this man's tone implied that he suspected them both. It showed how slight a hold he had upon the trust of his neighbors if they could so readily believe that he would rob the best friend he had in the settlement. He went into the house, and sat down by the hearth, his head leaned between his hands.

News of the robbery spread, and men left their work to go over to the store—stirred up, pleasantly excited. It was not often that Zion Hill settlement could boast of having anything so important as this robbery take place within its limits, and it must be made the most of.

'Zeki'l held aloof from the store, where he knew a large crowd had collected, but later in the day a small delegation came up to interview him. He read suspicion in every face, indignation in every eye. His quiet, honest life among them had been forgotten; they remembered only that he had been a convict.

"Once a thief, always a thief, I say!" one man cried loudly.

'Zeki'l clenched his hands, but what could he say in self-defense? He made a clear, straight-forward statement of all he knew about Miller, earnestly denying all knowledge of the robbery, but he felt the slight impression it made on their doubting minds. They did not openly accuse him, but they asked many questions, they exchanged knowing glances, and when they went away he felt that he had been tried and condemned. The sheriff had gone in pursuit of Miller, and all day groups of men sat or stood about the store whittling sticks, chewing tobacco, and talking. It was a most enjoyable day to them. It afforded excitement, and gave an opportunity to air opinions—to bring forth old prejudices. There was almost universal condemnation of 'Zeki'l. He had entertained the thief, had given him all the information necessary, and the more bitter ones wagged their heads and said that no doubt he had shared in the spoils. Even Mr. Davy Tanner looked sad and doubtful, though he defended the unfortunate man.

"We've no right ever to accuse a person without evidence o' guilt. We don't know even that this other man had anything to do with it—though circumstances do all p'int that way—let alone 'Zeki'l Morgan. It's best to hold our peace till we find out the truth."

"But it looks mighty suspicious ag'in' 'Zeki'l."

"Because he's been in the penitentiary, an' we think he's got a bad name by it."

"Well, ain't that enough to set honest men ag'in' him?"

"Yes; but it ain't best to always judge a man by his misdeeds in the past, but rather by his good deeds in the present, an' what they promise for the future."

"Why not, when it's accordin' to scriptur'?"

So the talk went on, while 'Zeki'l sat by his fireless hearth or walked aimlessly up and down the yard. At dusk his brother called, looking almost as haggard as he did.

"It's a bad thing, 'Zeki'l."

"Yes," said 'Zeki'l, listlessly.

"They are fools to think you had anything to do with it, plumb fools."

"It's natural they should, 'Lijy."

"I can't stand it, 'Zeki'l! Lord! I can't stand it!"

He fell into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

"Chut, man! what does it matter?" said 'Zeki'l, bracing himself up and forcing a smile. "Don't let 'Lizabeth believe it, that's all I ask."

"She'll never believe it."

"It's all right, then; I'll not care what the rest o' the world thinks."

"But I do," cried 'Lijy, starting up, "an' I'll put an end to it by—"

"You'll not do anything rash, 'Lijy," said 'Zeki'l, firmly, quietly, and laid his hand on the other's shoulder. "Recollect your family."

He looked slight and insignificant by the side of his brother, but his face had a strength and calmness which seemed to give it a power the other lacked. 'Lijy groaned, and turned tremblingly away.

A week passed, but Zion Hill settlement could not go back to its every-day vocations until somebody had been arrested for the robbery. The man Miller seemed to be wary prey, eluding his pursuers with the crafty skill of an old offender. It was a solitary week to 'Zeki'l. He had been completely ostracized by his neighbors. They openly shunned him, and no more work came to his forge. He stood in the empty shop one day, wondering what he should do next, where he should go, when 'Lizabeth walked slowly, quietly in.

He flushed painfully.

"You see I'm idle," he said, pointing to the dead coals in the forge. "They don't think I'm worthy o' doin' their work any longer."

"I wouldn't mind," she said, tenderly, laying her hand on his arm. "They'll see they are mistaken after a while, and be glad enough to come back to you."

"THE SHERIFF, TWO DEPUTIES, AND MILLER."

"I don't know," with a heavy sigh. "It's the injustice that hurts me, an' the lack o' faith in my honesty. The years I've lived here count for nothin' with them."

"I have faith in you, 'Zeki'l."

He laid his hand over hers.

"If I had you, 'Lizabeth, if I only had you to help me bear it!"

"That's what I've come for, 'Zeki'l. I'm crippled. It may be that I'll turn out to be more of a burden than a comfort to you, but I can't sit down there any longer, knowin' you are here slighted and sufferin' all alone. 'Zeki'l, have pity on me, if you've none on yourself, and let me bear this trouble with you."

He trembled before the future her words conjured up.

"Could you, would you, be willin' to bear my disgrace, share it, be shunned like a plague, have no company, no friend, but me?"

"What are friends to the one we love, or company? I'd give up all the world, 'Zeki'l, willin'ly, willin'ly, for you."

He looked into her deep, earnest eyes, realized the full truth of her words, and drew her closer to him.

"It's a great sacrifice, 'Lizabeth, an' I'm wrong to let you make it; but—the Lord forgive me! I can't hold out alone any longer. My will an' my courage are all broke down. I need help; I need you."

After a momentary silence he dusted a bench, and they sat down to talk over their plans for the future. The shop, black with charcoal and iron dust, was a queer place for such a conversation; but they paid little heed to their surroundings.

"Marthy Ann will never get over your marryin' me," said 'Zeki'l.

"Then she can make the best of it."

The next day was Saturday, and the beginning of the regular monthly "meetin'" at Zion Hill church. Everybody in the settlement who could, attended services that day. The Morgans were all there, even 'Lizabeth, and 'Zeki'l sat in his accustomed place, apparently unmindful of the cold, hostile glances and whispers around him. Through open doors and windows shone golden sunlight, floated spicy odors from the woods surrounding all but the front of the church, which faced the public road; and vagrant bees mingled their lazy hum with the champing of bits and the stamping of iron-shod hoofs in the thickets, where the mules and the horses were tied.

It was a quiet but alert congregation. A kind of expectancy—of suspense—filled the air. No telling what might happen before the day was over. The preacher made the robbery the theme of his discourse, and there were nods and approving looks when he referred to the punishment laid up for those who persisted in doing evil. It was a fitting finale that just before the benediction was pronounced a small cavalcade rode up to the church door—the sheriff, two deputies, and Miller. A thrill ran through the church, a rustle, a whisper, and the preacher cried aloud to the sheriff:

"What do you want, Brother Mangum?"

"'Zeki'l Morgan."

"Here he is! here he is!" cried more than one voice, and men rose to their feet and laid eager hands on the unresisting 'Zeki'l.

"What do you want him for?" cried 'Lijy Morgan, rising from his seat in the deacons' corner. "What's he done?"

"Helped to rob the store."

"We've said so, we've said so, ever since it happened!" a chorus of stern but triumphant voices exclaimed.

"Bring up the witness ag'in' him, the man that says he did it," said 'Lijy, advancing to the open space before the pulpit.

"No man has said out an' out that he helped to do it, but Miller—"

"It's a lie," cried 'Lijy, loud enough to be heard beyond the church door.

'Zeki'l's eyes were fixed anxiously, warningly, on his brother, and once he tried to throw off the hands holding him.

"Prove it, then!" a taunting voice cried out.

"I will," said 'Lijy, though he grew pale, and trembled strangely. "A more honest man than 'Zeki'l Morgan never lived."

"What do you know of him?"

Again 'Zeki'l strove to free himself, but failed.

"'Lijy!" he called imploringly, "'Lijy, 'Lijy, mind what you say!"

'Lijy looked across at him.

"I will mind the truth, 'Zeki'l." He turned to the congregation.

"I come here with good recommendations, brethren; I am a deacon o' the church; you have faith in my integrity, my honor." An approving murmur went up. "If a dozen thieves were to stop at my house there'd be no suspicion against me." He paused, passed his hand over his face, then looked up again. "Years ago there were two brothers in this State who grew up together happy and contented. The elder one was always a little wild, and would get drunk sometimes, even after he'd married and had a family to look after, but the younger was the steadiest, best boy in the settlement. One night the elder brother, in a fit of drunken recklessness, stole a horse from the camp of a Kentucky drover, an' nobody found it out but his brother, who undertook to return the horse, an' was arrested. He took the guilt, he stood the trial, an' went to the penitentiary. He lost his good name, the girl he loved, his home, everything in the world an honest man values. He served his time, an' instead o' comin' home to be a reproach to his cowardly brother, he, when free, went away into a strange settlement to live. An' by an' by his brother moved there too, an' his conscience hurt him more an' more as he saw what a sad, lonesome life the convict lived. He was prosperous, he enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-men, while the other was shunned, and regarded with distrust." Emotion checked his utterance for a moment; then he turned and pointed to 'Zeki'l. "Brethren, look at that man; look without prejudice or suspicion, an' you'll not see guilt in his face nor on his conscience. There never lived a truer hero than 'Zeki'l Morgan. Nobody should know it better than I, for I am the brother whose crime he suffered for."

Then he walked across the floor to 'Zeki'l's side in the midst of the deepest silence which had ever fallen upon a congregation in Zion Hill church.

WAS IT AN EXCEPTIONAL CASE?

The Capelles were Louisianians, of French descent, and before the war lived in New Orleans, occasionally visiting their plantations on Red River. But Anthony Capelle was killed in the battle of Vicksburg, and after the surrender Mrs. Anthony Capelle sold the Red River plantations for about half their value, placed her New Orleans property in the hands of a lawyer, gathered up some of her household stuffs, books, and other things she prized, and with her little daughter Madeline, and one old negro who had spent his life in the service of the Capelles, removed to Marietta, Georgia. Those were days of change and great confusion, and she disappeared from New Orleans and the knowledge of old friends without calling forth comment or question, and she was received into the social life of Marietta in the same way. It was not the time to sit in judgment on one's neighbors—to probe for secret motives or purposes. A common woe made all akin. From a merchant and planter who wished to sell out and go west to recuperate his broken fortunes, Agnese Capelle bought a house and lot on the northeast side of the town, and with her small family settled quietly down. It was a picturesque old house, built after the colonial fashion, and set back from the street in the seclusion of an oak grove. In the early spring the graveled walks were bordered with jonquils and mountain pink, and from April to December the roses bloomed along the garden fence and around the piazza.

The tumult following the war died away. People ceased to go about with a helpless, bewildered look as they learned to adjust themselves to the new conditions of life, and realized that the negro could no longer be regarded as a slave, but as a free citizen, with all the rights and privileges of citizenship. The laws of the country made white and black equal, but there was some bitter triumph in the consciousness that unwritten social laws would hold them forever apart, two distinct races, one degraded by color and past servitude. On the surface of life the agitations and thrills of the strong undercurrents ceased to make much impression; they had sunk too deep. The country at large settled to outward peace, and from politics and social questions attention turned to commerce and manufacture, to the development of rich mineral resources, and to literature. But the years passed quietly enough over the Capelles. They were so strongly fixed in their pride and prejudices against social equality that they pursued their own gentle, even way, untouched by the convulsions and throes of fierce indignation around them. Their servants were treated with kindness and consideration, and when the old man who had clung to them with unbroken faith through slavery and freedom died, they wept over him, and felt that a noble friend had been lost, though also a negro and a servant. And Madeline developed into womanhood, beginning her education at her mother's knee, and finishing it at a college in Virginia.

She was gifted above the average girl in wit and beauty, and possessed not only fascinating, lovely manners, but the tenderest heart and the finest sympathies. She was a girl of ardent temperament, but refined and delicate in all her tastes, and pure in thought and aspiration. She had strong convictions and opinions of her own, read and reflected more than the ordinary Southern girl, and loved music passionately. The simplest strain could make her eyes kindle, her color come and go, in a sort of silent rapture, and the pathos of a negro song moved her heart deeply. In person she was slightly above medium height, and held her head with an imperial grace not at all unsuitable to her youth and her French ancestry. Her hair was burnished brown, with a crisp wave in it, her eyes blue-gray and brilliant. But she lacked the clear, thin, transparent skin usually accompanying such hair and eyes, the blood pulsing through it pink as a rose. Hers was soft as velvet, with an opaque creamy tint, and the faintest suggestion of color, ordinarily. She had scores of friends, and in her own small family circle was looked upon as the most beautiful and lovable girl in the world. In Agnese Capelle's love for this fair daughter there was a passionate protective tenderness, a subtle quality one would have called pity, had not such a thing seemed absurd in connection with Madeline. While not betraying any undue anxiety over her marriage and settlement in life, she studied each suitor that appeared on the scene, and if eligible, gave him a gracious welcome. But Madeline's heart remained in her own possession until she met Roger Everett.

Marietta was just attracting the attention of the Northern invalid and also the Northern capitalist. A few delicate, weak-lunged people had found their way to it, and a company of enterprising men had projected a railroad to pass through the north Georgia mountains, across the Blue Ridge, and into North Carolina and Tennessee. Along the line of this road marble quarries were being opened and gold and talc mines discovered; but Marietta still preserved its provincial ways and appearances, its best houses the old colonial mansions, its churches overgrown with ivy, Cherokee-rose hedges bounding the pastures and gardens on the outskirts of the town, and inclosing the neglected-looking graveyard. Its picturesque hills were overshadowed by Kennesaw Mountain, with the solitary peak of Lost Mountain rising far to the south, and the dim, broken outline of the Blue Ridge range bounding the northern horizon. The hills and the mountains are still there, but the town has caught the spirit of progress sweeping with electrical effect over the South. Handsome modern residences are springing up, hotels and boarding-houses are being opened, and on the northeast side of the town a beautiful national cemetery has been laid out, where the Union soldiers who fell in the battles around Atlanta lie buried. The public square is still the scene of lively traffic in the fall, when the streets are crowded with wagons heavily loaded with cotton, the farmers, white and black, standing around, clothed in jeans and homespun, while the buyers go about thrusting sampling-hooks into the great bales to test the quality of the cotton and to determine its market value. But these brown, tobacco-chewing countrymen jostle the New Yorker, the Bostonian, and, indeed, people from all parts of the Union, seeking health and fortune.

Roger Everett was one of the first New England men to find his way to Marietta, and to invest in the Pickens County Marble Works. He belonged to the Everetts of Massachusetts, a family of strong abolitionists, and possessed his share of the traditional New England reserve and the deeply rooted New England pride. For a year or two he devoted himself almost exclusively to business, making only occasional visits to Marietta; but his circle of acquaintances widened, and, being young and handsome and cultivated, he was at last drawn into the social life of the town, and few parties or picnics were complete without him. He and Madeline met at one of the picnics, danced together once at one of the parties, but their acquaintance really began the day a large party went up the new railroad to the marble works. It fell to Everett to play the part of cicerone, and though Madeline shrieked less and asked fewer questions than the other girls, there was an intelligent comprehension in her eyes when he explained the process of getting out the marble from the quarries, and the machinery used for cutting it into blocks, that made him feel that he was talking directly to her. They lunched on the bank of Long Swamp Creek, with the purple shadows of the mountains falling over them, and mountain laurel in bloom all about them. Then Madeline and the young Northerner strolled away down the stream to look for maidenhair ferns. They talked at first on general topics, and then the girl asked some questions about the North, drawing in her breath with little quivering sighs as he told her of frozen rivers, of snows so deep one could scarcely walk through them, of sleighing and skating.

"And—and is it true what they say about the negroes?" she questioned hesitatingly, curious to hear with her own ears the opinion of one of these rabid abolitionists—at least she had read in the papers that they were rabid.

He smiled, broke off a bit of laurel, pink and fragrant, and offered it to her.

"What do they say, Miss Capelle?"

"That they are equal—that we should recognize them. Oh, I hardly know how to explain it," breaking off with a little laugh, not caring to tread too boldly on delicate ground for fear he should feel wounded.

"We respect them where they deserve it, just as we do all men," he said calmly.

"Regardless of color?"

"Yes. What has the color of a man's skin to do with the question of his worth?"

"Everything, if he is a negro. Could you—I beg your pardon for asking the question—sit at the table with a negro? actually break bread with him as your equal?"

"If he were a gentleman, yes," firmly, his blue eyes meeting hers fearlessly.

"Oh, oh! how could you? I cannot understand it. I am fond of some negroes. I loved Uncle Sam, I like Aunt Dilsey, and I'm sorry for them as a race, but meet them on common ground I could not." And then they drifted away from the dangerous topic.

He walked with her and her mother to the train that evening, and Mrs. Capelle invited him warmly and graciously to call upon them when he came to Marietta again.

"He is interesting," she said to Madeline, with a backward glance through the car window at his tall, slight figure as the train swept them away from the station.

"Do you think so, chérie mama?" indifferently, her eyes looking down upon her lap.

"He is handsome and well-bred."

"Oh, he is a Yankee," maliciously.

"He is a gentleman."

And then they looked at each other and laughed gently, and Madeline held up a little paper-weight of pale pink marble, veined with threads of white, that he had selected and ordered polished for her as a souvenir of the day.

From that day it was a clear case of strong mutual attraction. What though they had been differently trained, and their opinions clashed on some points? They came out of wordy controversies firmer friends than ever. There was never-ending interest in their combats, and the lightest jest or banter held a fascination keen as the brightest wit. He called Madeline a narrow-minded, illiberal provincial, for holding such fierce prejudices against the colored people, and she retorted that the negro had become a sentiment to the North, and that if they, the Yankees, would give some of their attention and pity to the poor white people crowding their large cities, the South would solve its own great problem. Sometimes they parted in anger; but it was short-lived, for love drew them with irresistible force, and if they disagreed on a few questions, how many hopes, thoughts, and desires they had in common! what taste and sympathy!

Mrs. Capelle looked on, sighed, and smiled, but waited in silence for Madeline's confidence. And one evening she came in, knelt at her mother's feet, put her arms around her, and pressed her flushed, tremulous, radiant face against her bosom. Mrs. Capelle flushed and trembled herself, and gathered that proud young head closer to her heart.

"You have promised to marry him," she said in a whisper.

"He asked me again this evening. I could not put him off," Madeline confessed, also in a whisper.

"Coquette! Did you want to put him off?"

"N—no."

"Oh, oh! he is a Yankee."

"I love him."

"He may take you away to his hard, his cold New England."

"We are to live here with you."

"Without consulting me? Fie! what aggressive children!"

"You are glad, mama. Why are you so glad I'm to be married?"

"I am longing to see you safe, my darling," dropping her teasing tone, and speaking with sudden agitation.

"Am I not safe with you?" lifting her head, and looking tenderly into the delicate face above her.

"But I am not strong, sweet, and I may be called suddenly from you some day, and it is not good for girls to be alone. It will be comforting to leave you in such hands. He is noble, he is good, and will love you faithfully. Ah, Madeline, he is strong and firm; he will rule my wilful girl."

"I should not love him if I could rule him," said Madeline, proudly.

Mrs. Capelle laughed and kissed her. "Tell me all about it," she said softly. They talked until the hand of the clock pointed to twelve, and only the barking of a dog or two pierced the silence resting upon the town.

"We have no secrets—no secrets from each other, have we, mama?" said Madeline with a happy laugh.

"No secrets, sweet? No, no; there should be no secrets between mother and child," said the elder woman; but her eyes fell; a paleness swept over her face. It was a swift, subtle change, unnoticed by the girl in the delicious absorption of her thoughts.

That was a winter to live in the memory of those lovers as long as they lived. Every one of the swiftly flying days seemed to have its own special joy, its own sweet experiences. When apart, there were long letters written out of the fullness of their hearts; when together, long talks, or delicious silences in which it seemed enough that they could be together.

And there were letters from his New England home to her, one from his mother, as sweet and gentle as her own mother could have written.

"She must be lovely, Roger," she said to him.

"She is," he replied with proud loyalty. "I am longing for you to see her."

"I shrink from it, for if she should not be pleased with me—"

"She must; she cannot help it, dearest. Ah! you know that you'll charm her," putting his hand under her chin, and turning her face upward to his eyes, its palpitant color, proud, shy eyes, and lovely tremulousness, a tacit confession of his power.

Before she could elude him—for with all her caressing ways and Southern temperament, lending itself so naturally to demonstrativeness, she was very chary of her favors—he drew her into his arms against his heart, and kissed her.

Mrs. Capelle spent those winter days sewing on fine linen, cambric, sheer muslin, and lace, stitching many loving thoughts into the dainty garments intended for Madeline's wardrobe. Imperceptibly, as it were, she had grown very fragile, and the least excitement caused her to palpitate and tremble, with flushed face and hand pressed upon her heart.

She had been a devout Catholic in her youth, and though removed from her church, she still occasionally attended mass in Atlanta, and went to confession. But as the winter passed, her thoughts turned longingly to Father Vincent, her old father confessor, and one day in the early spring she received a letter from him. He would in a short time pass through Marietta on his way to the North. Could he stop for a day with them? It seemed such a direct answer to her secret desire for his counsel that she joyfully hastened to reply, telling him how she needed his advice and his blessing.

She had rejoiced over Madeline's engagement, but as the time set for her marriage drew near, some secret trouble seemed to wear upon her, much to the girl's distress.

"What is it, mama?" she asked, sitting at her feet, and taking her hand and laying it against her cheek.

"What can it be but the loss of you, sweet?" she replied quickly. "You must allow me to be jealous and foolish."

"But you are not going to lose me, dearest mama, and are you sure—I have fancied there must be something else troubling you."

"Indeed you must not think so; I am selfish to—"

"Selfish! You, the best and sweetest woman in the world, selfish! I'll not believe that." Still she did not feel satisfied, and was greatly relieved when Father Vincent came, and she saw her mother brighten and look like her old self. It was about two weeks before the wedding that he came, and was persuaded to stop with them two days instead of one. He was an old man, small, slender, and ascetic looking, with clear, calm eyes, and a sweet voice.

It was the afternoon of his arrival that Madeline went out to make some calls, but after one visit changed her mind, and returned home. She did not at once go to her mother, knowing that she and Father Vincent would probably have much to say to each other, but turned into the parlor, cool, dusky, and deserted, and went to the little alcove, where she had left her embroidery and the last letter from her lover. It was simply a corner of the big room, furnished with a lounge and a small table, and shut in by soft silk curtains. How long she had been there, re-reading that letter, dreaming over her work, she could not tell, when roused by footsteps and voices in the room—her mother and the priest.

"You hinted at some special cause for trouble in your letter," he said, as they sat down in close proximity to those curtains and Madeline's retreat.

"Yes; it concerns Madeline."

"What of her? I thought her future had been settled. Is she not to be married in a short time?"

"Yes; but, Father, she is not my child, and I am growing doubtful of the honor of my course in regard to this marriage."

"Not your child!" exclaimed Father Vincent in surprise, for he thought that he knew all the Capelle secrets.

"No. I would to God that she were!" she said with deep emotion, "for I love her so well that I'd gladly give my life to know that pure, unmixed blood flowed in her veins."

His chair creaked as he drew it a little nearer her; his voice sank to a low key:

"You do not mean—"

"Yes; her mother was a quadroon," in a trembling whisper.

Did he hear that strange gasping sigh, as of a dumb creature struck by a mortal blow, that he so quickly and abruptly exclaimed:

"Where is she now?"

"Out calling. I did not dare speak of this while she was in the house, for fear the very walls would betray the secret. She must never know it, never! It would ruin her life, kill her, my poor, proud child!"

Her voice broke in tears.

"Tell me the whole story," said the priest gently, but with authority.

"Yes, yes; that is what I am longing to do. The secret has become a burden to me: I want to be assured that I have acted rightly about her marriage. You remember my husband's brother, Lawrence Capelle?"

"Well, very well; a handsome young fellow, but rather wild."

"And lovable with it all. He died while my husband and I were in France—we were there three years—and before his death he wrote to Anthony, begging him to look after the welfare of a child, a baby, and giving the history of his attachment to a beautiful quadroon in New Orleans. Her mother had been a slave, but this girl had been born free, received a very good education, and grew up superior to her class. She had loved him with rare faith and tenderness, and died at the birth of the child."

"They were not married, of course?"

"Married? Oh, no; but he had really been quite fond of her, and he dwelt at length upon the beauty and intelligence of the child. We came home very quietly, and before going to our own house, or betraying our presence to even intimate friends, we sought her out, and the moment I took her in my arms, looked into her eyes—Lawrence's own beautiful gray eyes, smiling with innocent fearlessness straight into my own—my heart went out to her in such a gush of love, pity, tenderness, I did not feel that I could ever be parted from her. Father, she was the loveliest, most lovable child I ever saw. We adopted her, we made her our very own, and no one knew that she had not really been born to us abroad. Not even to you, Father, did we confess the truth. The war came then, and Anthony died at Vicksburg; but I could not feel utterly alone, utterly bereft, while I had Madeline. I made plans for her; I said that she should never know that she was not truly my own child. Her training, her education, became the absorbing interest of my life. After the close of the war I thought it best for her sake to leave New Orleans, to seek a new and more obscure home, away from old friends, old ties. If we remained there she might in some way learn the truth. We came here, you and my lawyer alone knowing where to find us. I have brought her up most carefully. She is refined, beautiful, accomplished, and innocent as a young girl should be, but you can see for yourself what she is. I instilled the strongest race prejudices into her mind. I impressed it upon her that the negro is an inferior creature, a servant of servants, to be treated with kindness, but never to be considered an equal; for a morbid fear that her mother's blood would betray itself in some coarse or degraded taste, haunted me. But I am no longer afraid for her. Have I acted with wisdom? Have I done well to lift her up?"

"Assuredly; only"—he reflected a moment—"only your extreme course in regard to color prejudice would make the truth a hundredfold harder to bear should she discover it."

"But she shall not discover it. In two weeks she will be married to this young Northerner, her life merged into his, her very name lost. Is it right, is it cheating him?"

"If you cannot tell her, then you must not tell him, for it would only be to raise a barrier of secrecy between them."

"Tell me there is no dishonesty, no sin in it, and my heart will be at rest."

"According to my understanding, Agnese Capelle, there is none, but the highest human understanding is at best but poor authority. You have rescued this child from the common fate of her class, elevated her, thrown around her love, protection, the honor of a good name. You save her from the consequences of her father's sin. Be contented with your work. For marriage will be the crowning of it, and if she is noble, neither origin nor birth can make her less precious to her husband. I only wish there were more women like you in this country."

She drew a long breath of relief, but humbly said:

"Do not credit me with being a humanitarian. It was simply for love of her I did it all, and lately I have craved your blessing on it, Father Vincent, for I have developed the heart-disease hereditary in my family, and look any hour to be called hence."

A little longer they talked, and then went away, Mrs. Capelle to seek some repose after the excitement of the interview, and the priest to stroll about the grounds in prayer or meditation.

When the last sound of their footsteps and voices died away, the curtains were drawn aside, and Madeline came out of her retreat. She looked wan and ghastly, and groped her way across the room and up to her own apartment as though stricken with sudden blindness.

She closed and locked the door, then flung herself prone upon the floor. She felt like writhing and screaming aloud instead of lying there like a senseless log, only her tongue seemed paralyzed, her body numbed. And yet she could think—think with burning, agonizing intensity. Could it be true, or only a hideous nightmare out of which she would presently wake? Her mother a quadroon, her grandmother a slave! She wondered that the very thought of it did not kill her. Her name, her pride, everything that she had cherished, had been torn from her, and she—she had been hurled down into a black abyss where she must grovel and suffer until death set her free. Strange visions seemed to come before her out of the remote past—visions of African jungles, of black, half-naked savages borne across the seas to be bought and sold, to pine and fret in bondage, longing for the freedom which never came to them.

They were her ancestors; their blood, degraded by generations of slavery, flowed in her veins. Her education, her refinement, her prejudices would only be instruments of torture now, with that secret consciousness of shame and degradation underlying them. It was as cruel, as complete, as if it had been planned with Machiavellian art to this ending; and through the confused misery of her thoughts ran a sensation of pity for her mother, that she had so unconsciously spoiled her work. Presently the stunned feeling passed, and she rose to her feet again, and walked about the room. On the bed and chairs were strewed the pretty things belonging to her wedding outfit. Half unconsciously she folded and put them away. She would not need them now. Once she went to the mirror, and, leaning close to it, looked at herself, seeking for traces of that race she had been taught to regard as the lowest on earth. Did that soft fullness of lip, that crisp wave in her hair, that velvety, opaque skin come from her mother? A momentary savage rage thrilled her. She struck the glass so fierce a blow with her closed hand that it cracked from bottom to top. Then her eyes fell on her lover's picture, placed in an open velvet frame, and she paled and shuddered. She did not touch it, though a hundred times it had been pressed to heart and lip, but gazed at it with that intense parting look we give the dead before they are hidden forever from us; then she leaned over the bureau, her head bowed upon her folded arms.

The afternoon passed; twilight crept into the room. Faint sounds of life came up from the lower part of the house; the tea-bell rang; at last some one came slowly, heavily up the stairs, shuffled across the hall, and knocked on her door.

"Miss Mad'line, Miss Mad'line." She opened the door, and found Aunt Dilsey standing there, a big, coffee-colored mulatto woman, panting from the exertion of mounting the stairs, the wrinkles in her fat neck filled with little streams of perspiration. "Miss Agnese an' de priest man air waitin' fo' yo' to come down to supper, honey, an' Miss Agnese say hurry, de cakes gwine git cold," she said in a full rich voice; but Madeline only caught her by the shoulder, and stared at her thick brown skin, her coarse crinkled hair, her protruding lips, and broad figure. So her grandmother might have looked. "Fo' mercy's sake, honey, what's de matter? Air yo' sick?" cried Aunt Dilsey in a frightened, anxious tone; but the girl only turned from her, and fell upon the bed with a moan of despair.

She heard the old negress hurrying downstairs, and then her mother's light swift steps, and tried to compose herself.

"My darling, what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Capelle, bending tenderly, anxiously over her.

"It is only a—a—headache," said Madeline, glad that the twilight hid her face from those loving, searching eyes.

"Are you sure? Dilsey frightened me so."

"Dilsey is a foolish old creature."