to talk she had determined to tell him she was
not his mother, and so get him gradually accustomed to the conditions
of his birth. But every day she loved him the more, and every day she
had put it off. To-day it was no easier. He was too young, she knew, to
take in its full meaning, even if she could muster up the courage to
tell him the half she was willing to tell him--that his mother was her
friend and on her sick-bed had entrusted her child to her care. She had
wanted to wait until he was old enough to understand, so that she
should not lose his love when he came to know the truth. There had
been, moreover, always this fear--would he love her for shielding his
mother, or would he hate Lucy when he came to know? She had once talked
it all over with Captain Holt, but she could never muster up the
courage to take his advice.

"Tell him," he had urged. "It'll save you a lot o' trouble in the end.
That'll let me out and I kin do for him as I want to. You've lived
under this cloud long enough--there ain't nobody can live a lie a whole
lifetime, Miss Jane. I'll take my share of the disgrace along of my
dead boy, and you ain't done nothin', God knows, to be ashamed of. Tell
him! It's grease to yer throat halyards and everything'll run smoother
afterward. Take my advice, Miss Jane."

All these things rushed through her mind as she stood leaning against
the stone wall, Archie's hand in hers, his big blue eyes still fixed on
her own.

"Who said that to you, my son?" she asked in assumed indifference, in
order to gain time in which to frame her answer and recover from the
shock.

"Scootsy Mulligan."

"Is he a nice boy?"

"No, he's a coward, or he wouldn't fight as he does."

"Then I wouldn't mind him, my boy," and she smoothed back the hair from
his forehead, her eyes avoiding the boy's steady gaze. It was only when
someone opened the door of the closet concealing this spectre that Jane
felt her knees give way and her heart turn sick within her. In all else
she was fearless and strong.

"Was he the boy who said you had no mother?"

"Yes. I gave him an awful whack when he came up the first time, and he
went heels over head."

"Well, you have got a mother, haven't you, darling?" she continued,
with a sigh of relief, now that Archie was not insistent.

"You bet I have!" cried the boy, throwing his arms around her.

"Then we won't either of us bother about those bad boys and what they
say," she answered, stooping