ragged
shirt-cuff down from under his coat-sleeve, shook it in his son's
eyes--poverty. He went to one of the rotting doors and jerking it open
without turning the knob, rattled it on its loose hinges--poverty. He
turned to the window, and with one gesture depicted ruined outhouses
and ruined barn, now hidden under the snow, and beautiful in the Sunday
evening light--poverty. He turned and faced his son, majestic in
mingled grief and care.

"Kind! just! you who have trifled with your advantages, you who are
sending your mother out of her home--"

David sprang toward him in an agony of trouble and remorse.

"It is not true, it is not necessary! Father, you have been too much
influenced by my mother's fears. This is Bailey's doing. It is about
this I have wanted to talk to you. I shall see Bailey to-morrow."

"I forbid you to see him or to interfere."

"I must see him, whether you wish it or not," and David, to save other
hard words that were coming, turned quickly and left the room.

He did not go down to supper. Toward bedtime, as he sat before his
fire, he heard a slow, unfamiliar step mounting the stair. Not often in
a year did he have the chance to recognize that step. His mother
entered, holding a small iron stewpan, from under the cover of which
steamed a sweet, spicy odor.

"This will do your cold good," she said, tasting the stew out of a
spoon which she brought in her other hand, and setting it down on the
hot hearth. Then she stood looking a little fearfully at her son, who
had not moved. Ah, that is woman's way! She incites men to a
difficulty, and then appears innocently on the battle-field with
bandages for the belligerents. How many of the quarrels of this world
has she caused--and how few ever witnessed!

David was sick in heart and body and kept his chair and made no reply.
His mother suddenly turned, feeling a cold draft on her back, and
observed the broken window-pane and the flapping sheet of paper.

"There's putty and glass in the store-room: why don't you put that pane
of glass in?"

"I will sometime," said David, absently. She went over to his bed and
beat up the bolster and made everything ready for him.

"You ought to have clean sheets and pillow-cases," she remarked
confidently; "the negroes are worthless. Good night," she said, with
her hand on the door, looking back at him timidly.

He sprang up and went over to her. "Oh, mother! mother! mother!" he
cried, and then he checked th