The eagle-gate was open again. Mrs. Cecil had recovered from her illness, and was once more upon her broad piazza. This time she was not awaiting the arrival of the postman but of the plumber. The sudden heat of the southern city reminded her of her northern home in the highlands and she was anxious to remove there as soon as possible. But, with true Maryland housewifery, she must personally see to all the details of the annual flitting.

In every room of the house pictures were being swathed in tarletan, chandeliers wrapped in the same stuff, carpets lifted, furniture put into freshly starched slips, and the entire interior protected to the utmost against the summer's dust and fading. Only one matter did not progress as rapidly as this impatient little mistress of the mansion felt it should. Nobody came at her instant command to examine the plumbing and see that it was in order for the season.

"And water makes more trouble than even flies. Dinah, girl! Are you sure a message was sent to that man how I was waiting?"

"Positive-ly sho, Miss Betty. Laws, honey, don't go worritin' yo'se'f an' you-all jus' done gettin' ovah yo' misery. He'll be comin' erlong, bime-by," comforted the maid, officiously folding a shawl about Mrs. Cecil's shoulders, and having the shawl instantly tossed aside, with a gesture of disgust.

"O you girl! Do stop fussing about me. I'm nearly suffocated, already, in this awful heat, and I won't – I won't be wrapped up in flannel, like a mummy. You never had any sense, Dinah!"

"Yas'm. I 'low dat's so, Miss Betty. Mebbe on account you-all nevah done beaten me ernough. Yas'm, but I doan 'pear to be acquainted wid er mummy, Miss Betty. What-all be dey like?" And with imperturbable good nature, Dinah picked up the shawl and again placed it around her lady, who permitted it to remain without further protest.

"Hmm. No matter what they're like, Dinah. But you know, girl, you know as well as I do what trouble it made for us last year, when we went away and forgot to have the water turned off from the fountain, yonder. That care-taker we left – Oh! dear! Is there anybody in this world fit to be trusted!"

Mrs. Cecil was not yet as strong as she professed to be, but her weakened nerves seemed to add strength to her temper. A red spot was already coming out upon her pale cheeks when there sauntered through the gateway a corpulent man, with a kit of plumber's tools over his shoulder. He slowly advanced to the steps, lifted his hat, and, bowing courteously, said:

"Good-morning, Mrs. Cecil. Glad to see you able to enjoy the fine weather."

"Fine weather! Morning! I should think it was afternoon – by the way you've kept me waiting. Didn't you get my message?"

"Oh! yes, I did. A pickaninny about as big as a button brought it. What's to be done? The usual shutting-off, Ma'am?"

"Everything's to be done, this year, and thoroughly. The water made no end of trouble last season, for half the faucets weren't looked after. As soon as we got home in the fall and turned it on in the bathroom, the whole place was flooded."

"So, so? That was a pity. Yes, I remember. Well, it shall be gone over now, and I promise you nothing shall happen. By the way, all my men were out. Can one of your 'boys' wait on me and hand me my tools? I'm kind of stout and stooping bothers – "

She didn't wait for him to finish his sentence. A small black boy was throwing stones at the sparrows on the lawn, and him she summoned by the absurd title of:

"Methuselah Bonaparte Washington, come wait on this man!"

The poor little wizened specimen of humanity, whose mighty name seemed to have stunted his growth, timidly approached. His great dark eyes were appealingly lifted, as if protesting against a forthcoming blow, and his face was as sad as that of a weary old man. The sight of him amused the plumber and called forth from his mistress the question:

"Did anybody ever see such a woe-begone infant? He acts as if he had been thrashed within an inch of his life and on every day of it, but I know he's never been struck once. Been better for him if he had been, likely. He's Ephraim's grandchild and petted to death. His grandfather gave him his first name, Dinah his second, and as a graceful finish I tucked on the last. In real fact he's simply Brown."

Mrs. Cecil had now quite recovered her usual cheerfulness, which nothing greatly affected except the failure of other people to instantly obey her commands. Besides, she was lonely. She didn't like the postman who had taken "Johnnie's" place, and was never on hand when he appeared, indeed had not been able until now. Almost all her personal friends were already out of town: and with her old desire to hear about her neighbors, as well as a determination to look after the plumber's work this time, she rose and followed him into the house and to the upper floor where his examination of the spigots began.

Mr. Bruce had worked at Bellevieu ever since he was an apprentice and had not done so without learning something of its mistress's character. So, to please her love of gossip, he turned to where she had taken a chair to watch him and remarked:

"Terrible sad thing about John Chester's girl."

"'Girl'? Servant, do you mean?" instantly interested by the name of "Chester."

"Servant? Oh! no. That's a luxury my neighbor never had, nor any of us in Brown Street, except when somebody was sick. We're work-a-day folks on my block, Mrs. Cecil."

"Humph. What do you mean, then, by 'girl'?"

"His adopted daughter, Dorothy C. Haven't you seen about her in the paper?" he continued, well pleased that he had found some topic interesting to his employer.

"No. I've seen no papers. I've been ill, or that foolish doctor said I was, which amounts to the same thing. Anyway, I hardly ever do read the papers in the summer time. There's never anything in them – with everybody out of town, so."

The plumber laughed, a trifle grimly; answering with some spirit:

"Well, everybody isn't away, when there are several hundred people swelter all the hot season right here in Baltimore."

"Why don't they go away? Why do they 'swelter' – such a horrid word that is!" returned the lady, more to calm a strangely rising flutter of her own spirits than because there was sense in the words; which sounded so foolish to herself even, that she laughed. But her laugh was a nervous one and was instantly followed by the inquiry:

"What – what happened to the child?"

"Nobody knows. Kidnapped, I suppose, or murdered. All is known – she was sent to the post-office to get a letter of her father's. He couldn't go himself, being lame and off to a hospital. Letter was one like the rest that came every month, and had come ever since Dorothy was left on the Chesters' doorstep. There was ten dollars in it, likely. She got the letter, was seen to go out of the office, and has never been seen since. No trace of her, either, though the post-office 'boys' clubbed together and offered a reward. A hundred dollars for any information sent, whether dead or alive. Do you want both these spigots to have new washers on? They need it, I think."

"Spigots? Spigots?" repeated Mrs. Cecil, as if she did not comprehend; and, looking up, the plumber saw to his surprise and alarm that the lady was trembling and had turned very pale. He went to her and asked:

"Feeling bad, Ma'am? Shall I call somebody?"

She put her white hand to her head in a confused way and returned:

"Bad? It's horrible! Horrible! A —hundred—dollars!"

Mr. Bruce fancied she imagined the sum to be too large and was indignant. He reflected, also, that this was a childless old woman, and a rich one. In his experience he had found the wealthy also the most miserly, and nobody who had not a daughter of her own could understand what the loss of one might mean to a parent. His own beloved Mabel, ill at that moment with the measles, then epidemic – what would life be worth without her? Yet he knew, as well as anybody, that dear as his child was, Dorothy had been infinitely her superior in way of appearance, intelligence, even in affection. So much greater her loss then! and with a crispness that might easily hurt his business, he demanded:

"Do you think a hundred dollars too much to pay for the life of a child?"

"Too much? Too – much!"

Again she was repeating his words, in that peculiar manner which might mean either contempt or admiration. In any case she was acting strangely. She had evidently lost all interest in the business on hand, yet there was no suggestion of feebleness in the step with which she now hurried out of the room, and the plumber looked after her in fresh amazement. These idle people! How hard they were to be understood! But, in any case, he was glad to be rid of the lady's presence. He could work so much faster and better by himself, and if there were any harm to Bellevieu, that coming season of its owner's absence, it should not be his fault. There shouldn't be an inch of water-pipe, nor a single faucet, that didn't have his critical inspection – and bill according!

Mrs. Cecil's bell rang sharply, and Dinah hurried to answer it, that is, she fancied she was hurrying, though her mistress knew she really "dawdled" on the way and so informed "the creature" as she appeared.

"Oh, you lazy thing! I must get a younger woman – I certainly must! Didn't you hear me ring?"

"Yas'm, I sho done did. An' I come, ain't I? What's wantin', Miss Betty? Is yo' feelin' po'ly again, honey?"

"Tell Ephraim to have the carriage round within five minutes – not one instant later. Then come back and get me my outdoor things."

"Yas'm. Dat's so. I ain't no younger 'n I was yestiddy. But what for you-all done want Ephraim fotch de kerridge? Yo' know, Miss Betty, I ain't gwine let yo' out ridin', yet a spell. Yas'm."

"Will you tell him or must I? Between you and that wretched doctor I've been kept in this terrible ignorance. I'll never forgive you, never, for shutting me up in my bedroom, unknowing all these days, until now it's too late! Too late!" cried Mrs. Cecil, strangely excited and hastily tossing off her morning gown to replace it by another fit for the street.

Dinah was unperturbed. She understood that her mistress would have her will, but felt that it was a foolish one and should not be encouraged by any enthusiasm on her own part. With an exasperating calmness she lifted the discarded garment and carried it to a closet. From this with equal calmness, and an annoying deliberation, she brought her mistress's outside wraps and a black silk gown, such as she usually wore when driving out. But she purposely made the mistake of offering a winter one, heavily lined. She hoped that the "fuss" of dressing would change Mrs. Cecil's plans, for it was really far too warm to go out then. Later in the day, after the sun had set, she would help the scheme most willingly.

But the gentlewoman was now gaining control of her nerves and fully understood that it was over-affection, rather than disobedience, which made Dinah act so provokingly. With one of her kindest smiles, she took the heavy gown back to the closet herself, and secured the lighter one suitable to the day. Then she explained:

"It's no silly whim, my girl, that sends me down town on such a hot morning. Something serious has happened. Something which has just come to my knowledge and that I must try to set right at once. If you love me – help me, not hinder. You are to go with me, also. So, hurry and put on a fresh apron and cap. I can finish by myself."

"Yas'm. But yo' knows, honey, you-all only done lef yo' bed a speck o' time. Cayn't yo' business be put off, Miss Betty?"

"Not a minute. Not one single minute longer than necessary to take me to Baltimore Street. Hurry. Fix your own self. Don't bother about me."

"Yes'm. I'se gwine hu'y. But dat yere plumber gempleman – what erbout leabin' him, to go rummagin' 'round, puttin' new fixin's in whe' ol' ones do? Ain't you-all done bettah wait a little spell, an' 'tend to him, yo'se'f? Hey, Miss Betty?"

Dinah had touched upon her mistress's own regret, but a regret swallowed by so much of a calamity that she put it aside and merely pointed to the door, as if further speech were useless.

It was more than five minutes before Ephraim drove his well-groomed horses out of the eagle-gate, but it was in a very short time for one who moved as slowly as he, and he turned his head for orders, with expectation of: "The Park."

Quite to the contrary the word was:

"Baltimore Street. Kidder & Kidder's."

"Hey? 'D you say Eutaw Place, er Moun' Ver'n Avenoo?" he inquired.

"There, boy. You're not half so deaf as you pretend. Drive to Kidder & Kidder's, and do it at once," she repeated with decision.

"Yas'm. But does yo' know, Miss Betty, erbout a man was sunstroke yestiddy, Baltimo' Street way? It sutenly is pow'ful wa'm."

Mrs. Cecil vouchsafed no further parley with her too devoted coachman, though Dinah took it upon herself to administer one reproof which her fellow servant coolly ignored.

However, he had seen that in Mrs. Cecil's eye which brooked no disobedience, and so he guided his bays southward through the city, by wide thoroughfares and narrow, past crowding wagons and jangling street cars, till he turned into the densely packed street his lady had designated.

"Kidder & Kidder" were her men of business. He knew that. There had been no time, for years upon years, when a firm of this same name had not served the owners of Bellevieu. The first lawyer of that race had handed down the business to his heirs, as the first tenant of the rich estate had willed that to his. But it was now more common for the lady of the mansion to send for her advisers to visit her, than for her to visit them; and that there was something unusual in her present business both her old servitors realized.

It was something worth while to see how the elder Mr. Kidder, himself an octogenarian, retaining an almost youthful vigor, rose and salaamed, as this beautiful old gentlewoman, followed by her gray-haired maid in spotless attire, entered his rather dingy office. How the old-time courtesies were exchanged between these remnants of an earlier society, when brusqueness was considered ill-bred and suavity the mark of good blood.

A few such greetings past, and the old lawyer conducted his distinguished client into an inner room, exclusively his own, leaving Dinah to wait without, and whence the pair soon emerged; the lady urging: "You will kindly attend to it at once, please;" and he answering, with equal earnestness: "Immediately, Madam."

Then he escorted her to her carriage and stood bareheaded while she entered it: each courteously saluting the other as it rolled away, and he returning to his office with a look of anxiety on his fine face, as there was one of relief on hers.

"Well, I've done the best I could – now!" she exclaimed, after a time. "I've never entrusted any matter to Kidder & Kidder that did not end satisfactorily. That old firm is a rock in the midst of this shifting modernity!"

To which Dinah, not comprehending, replied with her usual:

"Yas'm. I spec' dat's so, honey, Miss Betty."

That evening both Ephraim and the maid, sitting under their own back porch, exchanged speculations concerning their lady's morning trip, and her subsequent quietude during the whole day.

"I 'low 'twas anudder will, our Miss Betty, she done get made. Dat's what dem lawyer gentlemen is most inginerally for. How many dem wills has she had writ, a'ready, Dinah?" queried Ephraim.

"Huh! I doan' know. Erbout fifty sixty, I reckon. She will her prop'ty off so many times, dey won' be nottin lef to will, bimeby. 'Twas dat, though, Ephraim, I 'low, too. Mebbe – Does dey put erbout makin' wills in de papahs, boy?"

"I doan' know. Likely. Why, Dinah?"

"Cayse, warn't no res' twel Miss Betty done sent yo' Methusalem out to de drug-sto' fo' to buy de ebenin' one. Spec' she was lookin' had Massa Kiddah done got it printed right. Doan' know what she want o' papahs, when she ain't looked at one this long spell, scusin 'twas to find out dat."

But neither of them guessed that Mrs. Cecil's interest lay in a large-typed advertisement, offering five hundred dollars reward for the return of the lost, humble little Dorothy C. Nor that this sum would have been twice as great, had not the worldly wisdom of Kidder & Kidder been larger than that of their aristocratic client.

CHAPTER XIV
THE BITER BIT

Even healthy Dorothy had rarely slept as soundly as she did that night, there in the airy barn on her bed of hay; and she had lain down as soon as she had finished her brief letter to her mother – which like those that had gone before it would travel no further than Mrs. Stott's range fire.

She woke in the morning to find it much later than usual when she was roused and that it was only Jim who was calling her. He did so softly, yet with evident excitement; and as soon as possible the girl got out of her hostess's too big nightgown and into her own clothes, still fresh from yesterday's laundering. Then she opened the door and ran to the trough of water, used for the cattle; and after a liberal ducking of her curly head, shook herself dry – for want of a better towel. Afterwards, to the barnyard, calling eagerly:

"Jim! O Jim!"

"Here I be. Don't holler. I'll come, soon's I take the milk in. I thought you'd sleep till doomsday!" he replied, still in a low tone, yet with less caution than he usually displayed.

She sat down on the barn door sill and waited. She had a strong reluctance to enter the cottage which was tightly closed and where she had so greatly suffered. So that it was with real delight she saw the lad was bringing a plate with him, as he returned, and guessed it to be her breakfast.

"Oh! how nice! I'll love to picnic out here, but how does it happen? and, Jim, what makes you so sober? Is – is she sick? Didn't she go to market last night? Tell – talk – why can't you? I want to hear everything, every single thing. I didn't know – I went to sleep – What a funny wagon it is, anyway!"

The big vehicle stood in the yard before them, its shafts resting on the ground; and the four mules used to draw it were feeding in the pasture beyond. Dorothy thought it wonderful how anybody, most of all a woman, could drive four mules, as Miranda did, without reins to guide them, yet make them so obedient to her will. The wagon, also, was a curiosity to her, though she had often seen similar ones on the streets at home.

It was a large affair, rising several feet upwards from its box, its ends projecting; forward over the dashboard and, at the rear, backward beyond a step and a row of chicken crates. The top was of canvas, that had once been white, and the tall sides were half of a brick-red, half of bright blue. Its capacity was enormous, and so prolific was the truck-farm that it was always well filled when it made its city trips.

"Have you had your breakfast, too, Jim?" asked Dorothy, rather critically inspecting hers, which did not at all suggest the dainty cooking of mother Martha.

"Yep. All I wanted. He – I reckon he's powerful sick."

"Can't you sit down by me for company? I feel so good this morning. I'd like somebody to talk to."

"A minute, maybe. I can make it up later."

"Jim Barlow, I think you're a splendid boy. I never saw anybody so faithful to such a horrid old woman. You never waste a bit of time, you only study when you ought to sleep, and yet – yet I didn't like you at all when I first saw you. When I get home and my father gets well, I'm going to tell him or the minister all about you, and ask them to get you a better place. To send you to school, or do anything you like."

The lad flushed with pleasure, and vainly tried to keep the bare feet of which he was so conscious out of sight in the hay upon the barn floor, where, for this brief moment, he dared to linger. Dorothy saw the movement and laughingly thrust forth her own pink toes, fresh from an ablution in the trough, and from which she had had to permanently discard her ragged ties.

"That's nothing. We're both the same. Anyway, a barefooted boy came to be president! Think of that. President James Barlow, of the United States! I salute you, Excellency, and request the honor of your sharing my brown-bread-and-treacle!"

Then she laughed, as she had not done for many days; from the sheer delight of life and the beautiful world around her. For it was beautiful, that first June day, despite the ugly cottage which blotted the landscape and the sordid implements of labor all about.

To his own amazement, the orphan farm boy laughed with her, as he did not know he could, as he surely never had before. This girl's coming had opened a new world to him. She had commended his ambition and made light of the difficulties in way of its achievement. She had assured him that "learning is easy as easy!" and she knew such a lot! She didn't scorn him because he was uncouth and ill-clad; and – Well, at that moment he was distinctly glad that she was barefooted like himself.

Recklessly forgetting that he was "using the time I was hired for" – the hire being board and lodging, only – he dropped down on the step and watched as she ate, so daintily that he could think of nothing but the sparrows on the ground. And as she ate she also talked; which in itself was wonderful. For he – Well, he couldn't talk and eat at the same time. It was an accomplishment far beyond him, one that had never been taught at the table of Miranda Stott. She not only chattered away but she made him chatter, too, now, in this unwonted freedom from his mistress's eye.

"Who's 'him'? Why, he's hern," he explained. "Her son, you know."

"No, I don't know. I know nothing – except that I'm a stolen little girl who's lost everybody, everything in the world she loves!" cried poor Dorothy, suddenly overcome in the midst of her gayety by the thought of her own sorrows.

Jim had never known girls and their ways, but he had the innate masculine dread of tears, and by the look of Dorothy's brown eyes he saw that tears portended. To change the subject, he answered her question definitely:

"He's the man what brought you here. That's him. He's hern."

"That man —Smith? He here? In the cottage yonder? Then —good-bye!"

Reckless of the sharp stones and stubble of the barnyard that so cruelly hurt her tender feet, the girl was up and away; only to find herself rudely pulled back again and to hear Jim's familiar:

"Pshaw! He can't harm you none. He's dreadful sick. He come – "

Here the lad paused for some time, pondering in his too honest heart how much of his employer's affairs he had the right to make known, even to this Dorothy. Then having decided that she already knew so much there could be no danger in her learning more, he went on:

"He come one night whilst you was so sick. She fetched him in the wagon an', 'cause you was in her bed, she put him up-attic, in yourn. Ain't but them two rooms, you know, an' the shed where I did sleep but don't now. I don't know what he'd done but – somethin' 't made him scared of stayin' in the city. He's been that way afore an' come out here, 'to rest' he called it. 'To hide,' seems if, to me. 'Cause he'd never go out door, till me or his ma'd look round to see if anybody was comin'. Nobody does come. Never did, only them he fetched, or her did."

Again a shudder of fear and repulsion swept over Dorothy, and again she would have run away but Jim's next words detained her.

"He can't move, hair ner hide. He's ketched them measles offen you an' he's terrible bad. She thinks he's goin' to die an', queer, but now she don't care for nothin' else. Her sun's riz an' sot in him, an' he's treated her mean. Leastways, I call it mean. She don't. She'd 'bout lie down on the floor an' let him tramp all over her, if he'd wanted to. She's goin' round, doin' things inside there, but she's clean forgot how it's berry-day agin an' the crop wastin'.

"So 'm I wastin' time, an' she claims that's money. I didn't know, afore, whuther 'twas him er money she liked best, but now I guess it's him. If you was a mind you could help pick berries for her. If you was a mind," said Jim, rising and shouldering a crate of cups, then starting for the strawberry patch.

Dorothy C. looked after him with some contempt. He seemed a lad of mighty little spirit. To work like a slave even when there was nobody to domineer over him! Indeed, she fancied that he was even more diligent in business now than he had been before. It was very strange.

"It's all strange. Life's so strange, too. They say 'Providence leads.' Well, it seems a queer sort of leading that I should be sent to do an errand and then that I should be so silly as to go with a man my folks didn't know – and get stolen. That's what I am, now: just a stolen child, of no use to anybody. Why? Why, too, should my father John be let to get an 'ataxious' something in his legs, so he had to lose his place? And mother Martha have to give up her pretty house she loves so, and go away off to the country where she doesn't know anybody? Why should I come here to this old truck-farm and a horrid woman and a horrider man and get the measles and give them to him? Was it just to learn how to plant things? I wondered about that the time I watched them do the celery. Well, I could learn so much out of books. I needn't be kidnapped to do it! And why on earth should I feel so sorry now for that woman in there? Just 'cause she loves her son, who's the wickedest man I ever heard of. And that Jim boy! I – I believe I'm going to hate him! Just positively hate. He makes me feel so – so little and mean. Just as if I hadn't a right to sit on this old barn door sill and do nothing but eat my breakfast. A horrid breakfast, too, to match the horrid woman and the horrid house and the horrider man, and the horridest-of-all-boys, Jim!"

With that Dorothy's cogitations came to a sudden end. No poor insignificant farm lad should put her to shame, in the matter of conscience, or generosity, or honor, or any other of those disagreeable high-sounding things! She'd show him! and she'd pick those old strawberries, if her back did get hot and the sun make her head ache! No such creature as that Jim Barlow should make her "feel all wiggley-woggley inside," as she had used to feel when she had been real small and disobeyed mother Martha.

Why she shouldn't run away and try to find her home, now that Mrs. Stott was out of sight, puzzled even herself. Yet, for some reason, she dared not. She had no idea of the direction in which that home lay, and there was no house visible anywhere, strain her eyes as she might to discover one at which she might ask protection.

The truck-farm seemed to be away off, "in the middle of nowhere." A crooked lane ran northward from it and Dorothy knew that this must strike a road – somewhere. But dear old Baltimore must be miles and miles distant; since Mrs. Stott spent so many hours in going to and from it with her produce, and in her bare feet the child felt she couldn't make the journey and endure. More than that, down deep in her heart was a keen resentment of the fact that, despite her own letters written and sent by the farm-woman, mother Martha had made no response beyond that verbal one conveyed by "Mr. Smith," that everything was "all right" and that, in the prospect of gaining her "fortune" Dorothy was wise to submit to some unpleasant things for the present.

Then would arise that alternate belief that she had been "kidnapped," and instantly following would come the conviction that she might be much worse dealt with if she attempted escape. If "Mr. Smith" was wicked enough to steal her, as she in this mood believed, he would stop at nothing which would save himself from discovery and punishment.

Jim Barlow was tormented by none of these shifting moods. His nature was simple and held to belief in but two things – right and wrong. He must do the one and avoid the other. This necessity was born in him and he could not have discussed it in words, or even thoughts, as did the imaginative Dorothy C. the questions that perplexed her.

At that particular moment he knew that the "right" for him was to save his employer's berries from decay, even though this meant no reward for him save a tired back and a crust of bread for dinner. But rewards didn't matter. Jim had to do his duty. He couldn't help it.

Now Dorothy watching from the barn doorway saw this and thought that "duty" was "the hatefullest word in the English language. It always means something a body dislikes!" Yet, so strong is example, that almost before she knew it the little girl had picked her gingerly way over the rough ground to the lad's side and had petulantly exclaimed:

"Give me some cups then! I hate it! I hate here! I – I want to go home! But —give me some cups!"

Jim didn't even notice her petulance. He handed her a pile of "empties" and went on swiftly gathering the berries without even raising his head, though one long hand pointed to the row upon which she should begin. He was pondering how these same berries were to be marketed; whether the anxious woman in the cottage loved money so well she would leave a possibly dying son to sell them for herself; or if she would trust the business to him. The last possibility sent a thrill of pride through him. If she would! If she only would, he would drive the hardest bargains for her, he would bring home more of the beloved cash than she expected, he would prove himself altogether worthy of trust. He knew the way, she had taken him with her once, at a Christmas time, when she needed his help in the extra handling. It had been a revelation to him – that wonderful Christmas market; with all its southern richness and plenitude, its beautifully decorated stalls, its forests of trees and mountains of red-berried holly, and over and above all the gay good nature of every human creature thronging the merry place.

That had been Jim's one glimpse, one bit of knowledge what Christmas meant, and though he knew that this was a far different season, the glamour of his first "marketing" still hung over the place where he had been so briefly happy. Why, even Miranda Stott, moved by the universal good will of that day, had spent a whole cent, a fresh, new, good cent, upon a tin whistle, and given it to her helper. She had done more; she had allowed him to blow upon it, on their long ride home, to the astonishment of the mules and his own intense, if silly, delight. Suddenly, into these happy memories and hopes, broke Dorothy's voice: