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singin' in the heavens what the song tells about--like the feelin' in here," she placed her hand upon her heart, her eyes flashing golden, "when the world air filled with flowers and the birds air a singin'.... Were it like that with Ben Letts? Were it?" "Nope," replied Myra sulkily, "Ben Letts ain't got no singin' kisses." She rose languidly,
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tucked the blanket closer about the sleeping child's head. "Tessibel," she broke forth hoarsely, "for all women folks there air brats a cryin' for their Pa's to tell 'em yep or nope. And there air men a-walkin' on the ragged rocks with singin' kisses for yer pretty face and tangled hair. There air a brat sleepin' till it's dead in
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the box." The tired young mother allowed her hungry gaze to fall upon the quiet infant. "Tessibel, yer brat--" But Tessibel bounded out of the door, over the snow-covered rocks like a deer. She would not lose the sweetness of the kiss in Myra's warning words--that penetrating holy kiss she had treasured for seven long days and nights. * *
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* * * The torturing thoughts that had filled the mind of Professor Young at finding Frederick Graves in the cabin of the fisher-girl were new sensations to him. He loved Tessibel, and in her lay his future happiness. Her stolid indifference to his endeavors to aid her through her father had blasted his hopes somewhat. Then again he would
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feverishly reason that she had been born to overlook all save those whom she desired and for whom she fought. It was like her kind. Excuses for the girl in the aid she had given the student ran willingly through his brain. If Tess had seen the young fellow in the storm, it was but like the tender, loving heart
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to aid him. It was no proof that Frederick had found a place in her affections. With these thoughts in his mind he had worked for several days, quietly hoping that the girl might seek him. Tess found him waiting at the shanty door for her one afternoon after returning from town. She smiled a welcome as she recognized her
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visitor. "It air about Daddy ye comed," she said, lifting the padlock from the staple. "Yes, child, I wanted to tell you of some new friends your father has made in Ithaca--strong friends to aid him." "Friends," echoed Tess wonderingly. "Daddy Skinner had fishermen for his friends--and not people of Ithacy--come in," she added. The fire crackled on the hearth
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and Tess sat down to listen with open lips. "I can't explain just how this came about," said Young, "but some of the people who were in the court-room the day your father was convicted have risen to befriend him." Professor Young did not add that he himself had urged that money should be raised for a second defense. "So
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last night," he went on, "there was a meeting of several prominent men and money has been placed in my hands for another trial for your father." Tess tried to understand the long words, and blinked knowingly. The import of it was plain. Daddy was coming back--but how soon? "When air he comin' home, then?" she demanded. "After another trial....
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See if you can read this?" From a long envelope the lawyer took a piece of paper. Tess examined it carefully for some moments. Young eyeing her with a sense of happiness. He would fight for this child as man never before fought for woman. She would love him out of gratitude if for nothing else. He took the paper
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she was holding out to him. "Can't read a damn word--can't read writin' anyway. Tell me what it says about Daddy." "It's a list of names," replied Young, "mostly members--" "Of Graves' church?" put in Tess eagerly. Hadn't the student been praying for just this? she thought. "Yes; they are all desirous to see your father home again with his
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little daughter." "Air the minister givin' money for Daddy?" was the anxious demand. Young shook his head. He felt a sudden swift-coming desire to tell her enough about the minister's family to make her hate them all. Deforest Young realized for the first time that he was jealous of the student, of a tall dark lad of whom in the
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past he had taken no more notice than of many other students. He drew a long breath. "Not exactly the minister," said he, flushing with shame. "Here--let me read the names to you. William Hopkins of the toggery shop, one hundred dollars. Do you know him?" Tess shook her head in the negative. "Deacon Hall and his wife Augusta gave
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one hundred dollars." "I know her," Tess cried, "and I knows him a little, too. I tooked them berries and fish--they has a cottage below the ragged rocks." "And there's the druggist, Mr. Bates--he did not put down his name on the list, but he gave fifty dollars." Tessibel listened to the explanations as Young read on, making it all
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plain to her as he proceeded. She was leaning far over toward him, her chin resting on her open palm. "They be dum good blokes, to give their money to a squatter, ain't they?" The professor started perceptibly. She did not understand that all had been done under his supervision; he had tried to impress upon her his great desire
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to help her, but no words of praise fell from her lips for him. He would have willingly given worlds had she said that he was "a dum good bloke." "They are all sorry for you and your father," he ended lamely. "It was the student, Graves, what brought Daddy the money," she burst out with a vivid blush. "No,
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the student, Graves, had nothing to do with it," was the grim reply. "He's a-been prayin' since Daddy went away--that air somethin'," Tess said stubbornly. Professor Young rose--then seated himself again. He had come for something else, something that meant work and satisfaction for him. "Now that your father is sure to be saved, will you leave this hut?" he
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asked peremptorily. "Nope!" "But it's not fit for you to be here alone, Tessibel. Listen ... I'll save your father's squatter rights, if you will study in some good school until he returns." "Aw, cuss! Who air to pay all the money?" Tess got to her feet with effort. "I will," deliberately answered Young. "Nope, I air goin' to stay
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here," snapped Tess. "I can fish and live likes I have been doin' till Daddy comes. I promised him I'd stay. I can read the Bible now," she ejaculated, promptly producing the book from under the blankets of the bed. "I's a-readin it every day.... If ye don't believes, ye can listen and see." She tossed back the curls from
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her shoulders as she ended emphatically: "I air a goin' to bring Daddy home through this here book--the student says." Again the terrible jealousy of the handsome student flashed alive in the professor. Tess had opened the Bible to a chapter she had never read before. "And straightway in the morning," she spelled, "the chief priests--Aw, that ain't no good!
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Wait till I find about Daddy." Then suddenly she threw the Bible down upon the floor. "There air places what says as how Daddy air a comin' home. The student says it air there. I ain't found it yet but I air a-lookin' for it every day. 'Tain't in that place where I just read about them geezers, the priests."
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The lawyer stood up. A pain seized him. He would save this ignorant girl in spite of herself, marry her in spite of Frederick Graves. It would be as difficult as scaling the icy mountains, but he would force her to love him more than the whole world. "You understand," he said shortly, "that these good people have given money
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toward helping your father come home. It will be some time before the trial will come up, but when it does--I will bring him back to you." The assurance in his tones brought Tess to his side. "Ye be a lawyer," she said abruptly, "and the squatters says as how lawyers air liars and tramps, but ye ain't no tramp,
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and ye ain't no liar, ye ain't--and when I sells a lot of fish I air bringin' ye the money for what ye air a doin' for Daddy and me. I says once and I says again as how ye air Daddy's friend, and I air glad that the student's meeting-house folks gived ye a little money to help us."
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Mist had gathered in her eyes and she slipped her fingers into Professor Young's. She laid her lips upon his hand, covering it with tears and kisses. Opening the shanty doors, she said: "I likes ye, I likes ye, but how much a squatter's brat likes don't make no difference. Ye go now, for the tracks get dark about five."
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"I have my horse at the top of the hill," replied Young, confusedly. The sensation from the moist lips upon his flesh prompted him for one brief moment to take the girl to him. He was filled with a strange desire to force this rude shanty maid from her surroundings and place her in another life with him. That night,
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as Tessibel slept and dreamed of Frederick, another girl waited for her lover. Teola Graves watched for the approach of Dan Jordan with strange emotions. When he was with her, his great strength and constant assurances that everything would go rightly with them gave the girl courage and confidence. But in the night-watches, when youthful sleep refused to come, she
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was afraid--afraid! She stood just outside the door, upon the veranda, shrinking from the raw winter wind. Relievedly she noticed Dan's tall form, when he swung around the corner. "You should not stand in the night wind, dear," Dan chided, gently kissing her. "There! now, I have come for a good chat. Teola, do not look so sad--please." The little
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drawing-room in the Rectory was partially dark when they seated themselves on the divan. "I am so unhappy Dan; so different from what I used to be. Then, life was sweet and I was glad to live--" "But you don't want to be dead now, sweetheart!--Think of it, Teola. When I shall have finished college, I shall be of age.
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We will go away from Ithaca, and no one will ever know--" "But we shall know, Dan. If I had only been a good girl!" Dan was visibly moved. "Let's make a bargain," said he suddenly. "To-night we won't talk of anything but the pleasantest of things. I have something funny to tell you." "I have something to tell you,
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too," breathed Teola. "Is it pleasant?" demanded the boy, bending and forcing the lowered eyes to his. Teola shook her head. "Then we will leave it until to-morrow," he exclaimed. "I'll tell you my news. Shorts, Spuddy and Swipes are in disgrace at the fraternity. If Shorts would keep away from those other two fellows, he might get through college.
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It was really their fault Frederick was stolen." "What have they done now?" asked Teola listlessly. She had little interest in the boys of the society, for, nestled close to her heart, was a secret she could not forget. She had a realization that something unusual had fallen upon her of which she was afraid. "Well, you see," explained Dan,
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"there is a comic opera playing here. This afternoon, Swipes, Shorts and Spuddy took some of the chorus girls to the house, when the other fellows were away. They might have known the officers would have found it out. Sure enough, they did! The little rascals were all drunk on champagne, and the girls had to be sent to their
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hotels in carriages. The kids received a great beating, let me tell you. They are all in bed, in the cupola prison rooms, trying to get over big heads." Teola wanted to smile, to be happy, but the smiles refused to come. Dan turned the subject. "Haven't they gathered a deal of money for Skinner?" Teola nodded, and presently responded,
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"Yes, and father thinks it is so strange. Mrs. Hall and Professor Young were at the bottom of the plan. They think the Skinner girl is a great marvel. I, too, think she is beautiful--and so does Frederick." "She has a lot of courage," mused Dan, thinking of the girl who had rescued the class president from the hands of
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his enemies. Teola knew nothing of this episode, for Frederick had asked him to be silent upon it. "Your father does not wish the man liberated?" The question in Dan's voice brought a flush to Teola's pale face. "No; he thinks the tribe is a menace to the town, and he is sure the man is guilty. They do tell
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dreadful things of them, and I can't help but believe some of the tales, although I feel sorry for the girl. But her coming to the toffy pull that night made a great deal of trouble for brother and me." "So I supposed. But I love you, Teola, for the manner in which you treated her." Teola straightened herself from
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her lover's arms, and was about to speak. She would tell him, then, tell him her secret--tell all the fears that weighed upon her heart, as if they were loaded with lead. He would comfort, and tell her not to worry--cheer her, until she could smile again and be happy. * * * * * Shorts, Swipes and Spuddy had
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broken the laws of the fraternity. Rather than suffer the disgrace of leaving it, they had elected a severe punishment. "I'd rather be cut to pieces, boys," Swipes hiccoughed, turning upon the grave seniors, "than let my mother know what a beast I've been. Go ahead and lick!" Afterward, the three little freshmen slunk to the rooms in the top
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of the Society house, which were kept ready for young men whom the officers reprimanded. They had been ordered to bed for three days, and were thankful that the punishment had been no worse than it was. Swipes demanded a cigarette. "Go to sleep," ordered Shorts. "It was all your fault in the beginning, and you're drunk." "No such thing!
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I couldn't haul a whole bunch of girls up here alone, could I, if I'm drunk! Could I, now? I wish there wasn't any such a being in the world as a woman.... They bring heaps of trouble on us poor men." Saying this, Swipes tumbled into bed, and sank into a stupor. * * * * * The cry
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of "Fire!" rang out upon the night air, startling Dan Jordan and Teola Graves. The volunteer fire companies were gathering from all parts of the town, and Dan stepped on to the Rectory veranda as a hose-cart rolled by. In an instant he was back in the drawing-room. "Sweetheart, sweetheart," said he, with a strangling kiss upon Teola's pale lips,
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"I am sure it's our fraternity house. I must go, dear. I must, I must!" He pressed her to him again, bounded through the door and was gone. "Dan! Dan!" exclaimed Teola. "Dan, come back! I have something to tell you ... I'm so--afraid--so afraid!" * * * * * Teola stood watching the yellow flames kiss the sky. The
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whole campus gleamed under the lurid glare of the fraternity fire; the light in the heavens told her that it was no ordinary conflagration. Until the day of her death she would not forget that night. She was longing to hear one word from Dan or Frederick. Her world seemed charged with hideous forces hitherto unfelt. Teola sickened, and waited.
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If Dan would only come back! * * * * * The very moment after he had fallen asleep, it seemed to Swipes, Shorts was pulling him out of bed, and the room was full of smoke. Spuddy was sleeping in the next chamber, and the first sound came to him in a haze-like dream. He thought he heard a
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roar of thunder, and rain descending upon the roof. Never mind. He was safe in bed, and had just escaped expulsion from his fraternity. As he rubbed his aching head, a dazed resolution took form in his brain. He would never get drunk again--never--never! Then the fumes of the wine brought visions of bright-colored dresses, of pretty faces and tender
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loving arms, such as his father had told him to beware of. He would toss such joys from him, if it brought him--Spuddy groaned, turned in bed, and tried to wake up. But to wake up was to realize his disgrace. He groaned again, a sharp pain ripping through his head. He heard the sound of voices--he was dreaming, of
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course; the wine floated fantastic visions again through his misty brain, relieving it of the effort of thinking. Then Shorts' voice rang in his ear. "For the love of God, Spud, get up! The house is on fire, and we're boxed in this cupola like rats in a trap." Spuddy sprang out of bed. The thunder he had dreamed of
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was the roar of the fire in the walls of the great house. The rain descending on the roof was the water being thrown from the long fire-hose. A strong stream of ice-cold water suddenly broke the window, driving Swipes against the wall. He whimpered drunkenly. "Plagued fire! 'Course the house had to burn down on a night like this!"
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Screams and cries from the crazed mob below came up to the boys through the broken pane. The water ceased its flow, and Shorts, the most sober of the three, crept to the opening. Spuddy had crawled back to bed. Far beneath him, Shorts could see his fraternity brothers running wildly to and fro, frantically waving their arms to him.
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He could hear orders given in loud tones, and recognized the voices of Frederick Graves and Dan Jordan. It all flashed upon Shorts in a moment how greatly he and his chums were to blame for the disaster, for the fire must have started in the dining-room. He thrust his head through the lurid gleam to attract attention, and saw
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the men and boys in the yard bringing ladders to rescue them. Now they were splicing them together, to make it possible to reach the great height. Shorts made quick resolves.... If he lived.... He turned with a groan, and dragged Spuddy from the bed to the open window. "Stay there, and be ready, if you don't want to die,"
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he commanded curtly. Shorts saw the ladder rear upward, and a form dart from the shadows. Dan Jordan was coming, hand over hand, toward him, the long ladder creaking under his weight. Jordan's face appeared at the opening. "Come out here," he commanded Shorts. Shorts pushed Spuddy forward. "Take him first, Captain," he said, with a twist in his voice.
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"He's drunk." Spuddy hung limp on the window-sill for an instant, and was then gathered into Dan's long arms. Shorts' bleared eyes saw the little chap handed safely to the earth, and the ladder again creaked under the upward steps of the big freshman. Shorts pushed Swipes toward the window as Dan called his name.... Now he was alone, and
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he leaned as far out as he could. "God! God!" he groaned. "The Captain's face is scorched brown.... God! dear God, bless him!" The crowds below were sending up cheer after cheer; myriads of sparks shot rocket-like high into the air, dying in the snow as they fell. Streams of water poured into the flaming windows. Jordan was coming up
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again. "Come out, Shorts," he heard Dan say, and he clambered over the sill. "Slip into my arms, old man," the deep voice persuaded. "Come, now; let go.... There, hang limper.... You're heavier than the others." He felt Dan take a downward step, and his head whirled around and around. They passed window after window, Shorts being carefully held under
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Dan's arm. Flames licked at them greedily, touching and shriveling their flesh. Smoke choked their nostrils cruelly. Shorts could feel the trembling of Dan's body, as his burned fingers grasped each rung of the ladder. To his mind the figures below looked like goblins dancing in the light. Suddenly, midway to the ground, the ladder creaked and groaned hideously. Jordan
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halted. "The ladder is bending, Shorts," he breathed hoarsely. He did not finish his sentence, but shouted, "Catch him!" Little Brown shot into the air like a rubber ball.... A crashing sound broke over the silent, gaping throng below. Then a giant form turned twice in the air, shooting downward like a stone from a sling.... The crowd parted, and
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Dan Jordan struck the frozen ground. His fraternity brothers lifted up the unconscious boy, and the great roof above, with a sickening din, sank into the fire. The bitter frost hardened the streams of water pouring from holes in the burning house into ropes of ice. Toward morning, the fire died, leaving the huge frame, like an ice-covered palace, looming
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darkly against the college hill. * * * * * In another fraternity house, Shorts was in bed, face and hands swathed in bandages. Swipes and Spuddy, tear-stained and pale, stood by the door, waiting. "If only they would come and tell us something!" moaned Spuddy. "Boys, if the Captain goes, I'm done for." "We'll make it all right with
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him," came hopefully from Shorts. "He can't die, fellows! He's as strong as a horse. If he hadn't thrown me out into that snow pile, I would have been crushed under him. I'll never forget that in all my life," he finished, with a shudder. "Gad, but he looked dead when they picked him up," said Swipes in despair. "I'm
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done for, too, if--if.... Here comes some one! It's Teddy!" He stepped aside, and Manchester, entering deliberately, closed the door. Then he sat down dazedly. "He's gone, boys. The Captain's gone." The words came in a stammer through pressed lips. "I wish it had been I," muttered Swipes brokenly, when they were alone again. "It was all my fault." He
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burst into a wild sobbing. "I'd give my very life to have heard--the Captain--say he had forgiven me." "I was more to blame than you were," replied Spuddy. "My mother.... God! look at that sun!" Bright rays slanted golden through the window upon the three woful little freshmen who had ruined the "Cranium" Society. One day in the following July,
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Tessibel was going to Mrs. Longman's hut, with a list of Bible words she did not understand. She stopped at the edge of the forest, and listened to a curious sobbing sound she thought issued from beyond the gorge. Then, thinking herself mistaken, she ran nimbly on, avoiding the long thorns that lay in her path. The noise came more
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distinctly through the clear air, making the squatter girl lift her head and pause again. There was no mistake this time. "It ain't no pup," she said aloud, "'cause a pup don't snivel like that." Raising the red head, she tore long threads of hair loose from the briars, and, drawing the masses of curls about her shoulders, broke into
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the opening of the forest. Some one was crying, and any sign of suffering brought an immediate response from Tess. It might be Myra, or it might be some little lost child. Spurred on by sympathy, she bounded over a bed of dead chestnut burrs, waded through the water to the other side of the creek, and struggled up the
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rocks. Teola Graves, crouched in an attitude of suffering and despair, was seated on the gnarled root of a huge tree. Tessibel watched her for an instant. Here was a holy personage to the squatter, touched with the finger of the mysterious God the student worshiped. And was she not the sister of Frederick, and had not Teola given her
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coffee from her own cup that winter night? Tessibel had not spoken to the minister's daughter since her father had been taken away to Auburn, and some of the intensity Tess had felt upon that one great day of her life came back to her as she stood hesitant, watching the student's sister. Perhaps the girl was weeping for some
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pleasure denied her--perhaps for a jewel to wear about her neck. She went forward impulsively, and laid her hand upon the rounded shoulder. "What be ye blattin' over?" she stammered, with a tinge of awe in her voice. Teola struggled to her feet, suppressing her grief. The question stopped the flow of tears, and the two girls, so differently situated,
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the one the daughter of an eminent minister, and the other a squatter, wonderingly eyed each other. "I thought I was alone," was Teola's answer. "So ye was," replied Tess. "I heard ye cryin' from the lower ledge of the rocks. What air the matter?" Infinite pity and tenderness in the coarse words, spoken in a sweet, persuasive voice, brought
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a fresh burst of tears from Teola. "I'm--I'm ill to-day." "Ye'll be all right to-morry.... 'T'ain't much, air it?" "It is very much to me," whispered Teola. "I'm so lonely, and so afraid!" Tessibel sat silently down beside the other girl, twining one arm about the twisted root of the tree. She was used to sorrow, used to watching the
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agony of human souls without hope. A bird in the top of the tree above them sent a plaintive note into the hot air. Another answered from the forest, and Tessibel raised her head and saw a scarlet bird take wing and disappear into the branches of the wood trees. She waited for Teola to speak, but at last, seeing
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there was no cessation of tears, she leaned over and touched her. "Be ye lonely for yer ma?" she murmured. Teola shook her head in the negative. "Then for yer pa?" "No!" Ah! Tess had forgotten. Had she not seen Frederick go away weeks before, in a boat filled with pots and kettles and food for a camping expedition? Had
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he not smiled at her brightly as she passed him on her way to the fish line? She could remember the tense feeling in her throat, and felt again the hot blood rushing madly into her face. Of course, the girl was weeping for her brother! "Then air ye blattin' for the student?" She could scarcely utter the last word,
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scarcely let Teola hear her voice use that beloved name. "Yes, I was crying for him," replied Teola. "He is dead, you know." For one instant Tess thought the world had lost its sun. Her face creased into lines, which tightened rope-like under the tanned skin. How could Frederick have died, and she not have known? She rose unsteadily to
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her feet, uttering one grunt significant of her suffering. "Were he drowned?" she asked, in a voice so pained that Teola raised her head and looked at her. She did not understand the meaning of the whitened lips nor of the tense drawing-down of the long red-brown eyes. "No," she replied slowly, "he was killed in the fire on the
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hill last winter." The muscles relaxed in the squatter's face. Her legs refused to bear the slender body, and Tessibel dropped again at Teola's side. The kiss she had cherished burned hot upon her lips. Her student lived. The minister's daughter cried for the other one, for him who had called her Miss Skinner, and who afterward helped her smuggle
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Frederick into the opera-house. "Why! he air been dead a long time, ain't he?" "Yes; six months." "And ye air a-lovin' him yet?" "Yes." "But he air dead," philosophized Tess. "He ain't with no other girl." Teola shivered violently. "Oh, I know that; I know that. But I--I need him. I want him so!" "But he air dead," said Tess
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again steadily. For many minutes neither spoke. For Teola's new burst of agony settled a solemnity upon Tess which she could not throw off. Forgetting her squatter position, she slipped her hand between the white fingers of the weeper. Teola did not care if the girl's finger-nails were filled with black soot, did not care if the squatter were covered
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with a dirty, ragged dress, or if her bare feet were calloused from the rocks. Tess was a human being who sympathized with her, and sympathy was as necessary to Teola's soul at that moment as breath was to her body. In the spasmodic whitening of the other girl's face Tess realized a desperate heart agony. [Illustration: "THEN YE AIR
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COMIN' HOME WITH ME TO THE SHANTY."] "Ye air sick," she said at last, an enlightened expression widening her lids. "A woman's kind of sick, ain't it? Eh?" "Yes," answered Teola, flushing deeply; "yes." "Then ye air a-comin' home with me to the shanty." Tess muttered this in a sly voice, almost in a whisper. Teola raised her glance, and
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read in the eyes bent upon her that her whole secret was known. Tessibel Skinner, her father's foe, the daughter of a murderer, was helping her to her feet. "I'm too sick to walk," she wept, in a barely audible voice. "I tried to throw myself from the rocks, over there, but the water was so silent, blue and terrible,
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that I couldn't." "Ye be comin' with me," insisted Tess stolidly. She was urging her forward, holding Teola by both arms. "I can't! I can't! Leave me here--I am so ill! I am going to die!" "Ye air to come," commanded Tess. "And, if ye will, I'll lug ye when ye can't walk. Women like ye don't die, and Mother
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Moll will come to the hut to-day." "Mother Moll!" echoed Teola. "Mother Moll! Oh, you mean the witch? And will she--oh, will she help me so they will never know?" "Yep. And now shut up. Ye air a woman, and was borned for things like this. If ye walks a spell, then I lugs ye across the gully." "And my
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father and mother--" "Shut up, I says," ordered Tess. "It ain't no time to think of fathers and mothers. They don't know nothin' about it, does they?" "No," said Teola. "They have been in Europe with my little sister for nearly four months. I've been alone all summer, with Rebecca, our maid, and Frederick, my brother--" Her lips closed over
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a moan of pain, and she did not continue her sentence. Through the forest, over the gullies, and down toward the Skinner hut the two girls went slowly, Teola whimpering in her agony of soul, and Tess carrying her when she could not walk. Only once did Tessibel stop. "Hold a minute," she said gruffly, releasing Teola. "One of the
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dum thorns went clean through my toe.... It air out now.... Come along! What does I care, if it does bleed!" Teola drew a sigh of relief when they crept under the willow tree. The hut was in its usual dirty condition, the Bible in the accustomed place on the stool. The suffering girl did not notice that the table
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was littered with the remains of the dinner, and Tess put her in Daddy's bed, and said, with a compelling, forceful glance: "Ye air to stay there till I gets back.... And remember we air a woman, and women, when they loves men, keep their mouths shet.... Even if their man air dead.... Ye won't let anyone hear ye a-yelpin'
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while I air gone, will ye?" "No, no! Go quickly, Tessibel," murmured Teola. "Go quickly!" This time the briars and thorns pierced the squatter's bare feet without avail. Tess was rushing away upon an errand of love. Was she not perhaps saving the sister of the student from death--keeping from him a knowledge that would rend his heart? Since that
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night when Daddy Skinner had been taken to prison, Tess had but once visited Mother Moll. In her impatience, she did not wait to reach the hut. "Mother Moll!" she shouted, bounding across the gully. "Come out! Tess air here!" "Come in," commanded a cracked voice. Tessibel entered the shanty, finding Mother Moll stretched out on the bed, with a
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corn-cob pipe between her shriveled lips. "Get up from there, Ma Moll," ordered Tess, "and come to my hut. I wants ye." "It air too hot," muttered the witch. "I ain't a-movin' from the bed to-day." Tessibel bent over the wrinkled face, and looked determinedly into the blood-shot eyes. "I got someone what air sick," she exclaimed, grasping the hag's
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arm forcibly. "Ye air to come with me.... See? And if ye does come, I gives ye a mess of eels every week for a year--and more'n that. I'll pick yer berries from yer own patch, if ye can't pick them yerself." "Who air a-ailin'?" asked the old woman, crawling out of bed. "Never mind. Come along." It was a
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strange couple, forging the gorges and gullies, pushing aside the brambles to the lane almost opposite Minister Graves' home. In the summer's quietude, the squatter girl could mark the long chairs on the Dominie's front porch, and the hammock sagging from the hooks in the corner. No one saw the witch and Tessibel enter the hut; no one heard the
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girl slip the night lock into its fastening. Teola, frightened and miserable, raised her head, and looked once at Mother Moll, then dropped it again. Dusk had fallen over the lake, closing the shanty within the shadows of the weeping willows. Mother Moll had departed before sunset. Tessibel had four candles streaming their twinkling light upon the bare floor of
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the hut, and was busying herself at the stove. A voice from the bed faintly whispered: "Did you tell Rebecca what I told you to? Tell me again what you said to her." "I telled that ye was to stay to-night with a girl below the ragged rocks, and she didn't give a dum. She air only a workin' girl;
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she ain't yer own flesh and blood." "And the baby, Tessibel? May I see my baby?" "Nope, not to-night." "Please, Tessibel! Please! Are his eyes grey, and has he dark hair on his head?" "If ye don't shut up, I takes the brat to Ma Moll.... Now, then, drink this tea, and eat this bread. To-morry ye has to go
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home, ye know." "But my baby, Tess! What shall I do about my baby?" The nervous whining in Teola's voice brought Tess over to her. The squatter forced the soiled blanket over the young shoulders. "If ye sleeps to-night, I tells ye in the mornin' about the brat.... Sleep, now." For more than an hour Tessibel sat with Teola Graves'
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baby clasped tightly in her arms, moving back and forth silently in the wooden rocker. A broken board squeaked now and then under the girl's weight, but she slipped the chair into other positions, and rocked on. She marveled at the child born but that afternoon. The eyes were large and grey. Locks of damp hair fell over a wrinkled,
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broad brow, giving the infant the expression of an old, old man. In the light Tess could mark every feature. She had never seen a babe so small, and so sickly-looking. She ran her fingers over the right cheek, tenderly, rubbing down a livid mark that extended from the dark hair to the upper part of the breast. It was
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the birth-mark of fire, red and gleaming crimson as the brightest blood, and it had been because of this mark that Tess had refused the young mother's request to see her child. Perhaps in the morning it would be gone. If not, Teola would be stronger and better able to bear the shock. After wrapping the infant closely in a
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