And those seeking, like Willy and me, are like to wander
until youth and hope and opportunity are gone."

She was crying against a little cropped head. King William stood
irresolute, then put an arm around her. "Not that way, mummy; don't
tell it that way."

But control had given way. "And there is nothing for little Jason. He
must go and fight with his bare hands like any poor churl's child--oh,
Willy, Willy, my little son--"

Alexina, in her lap, sat very still; King William was staring hard
into space.

Charlotte went on. "We are going away, little Mab, Willy and his
father and I; going away for good. Everything that ever was ours, this
cottage and all, is gone. We are going to a place in the South called
Aden, where there are a few acres that still are ours only because
they would not sell."

A moment they all were still. Then the little breast of Alexina began
to heave. The Leroys had never seen her this way. Sally Ann had, many
times, and Nelly once or twice. She threw herself upon Charlotte. "I
want to go, too; I want to go; I hate it--there," with a motion of
self toward the big, white house visible through the window. "I hate
it, and I want to go too."

They were all crying now. Suddenly King William stood forth in front
of the child. "When we get rich, I'll come for you," he said.

The practical Alexina looked through the arrested tears as she sat up.
"But if you don't get rich?" she questioned.

Charlotte laughed. She was half child herself. The laugh died. The
other half was woman. "Then he won't come; if he is the son of his
father, he won't come."

PART TWO

"Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone."
EMERSON.

CHAPTER ONE

Alexina Blair, at twenty, returned from school to her uncle's home
with but small emotion, as, at fourteen, she had left with little
regret, yet the shady streets, the open front doors, the welcomes
called from up-stairs windows as she passed--evidences that she was
back among her own people in the South--all at once made her glad to
be here.

How could she have felt emotion over a mere return to Uncle Austen's
house? She might have felt enthusiasm over Nelly, but Nelly was
married to the gardener at her old asylum and a Katy had taken her
place. The house was the same. If only its stone facade might be
a