it down just as I tell you. I'm going to die soon--Don't stare
like that--write it down. Dan Witham can't harm me then, and I'm going
to tell. Her name isn't Bess Thornton--it's Bess Ellison."

Henry Burns's hand almost refused to write. But he controlled himself,
and followed her.

"Dan shan't have her," she continued. "I'll give her up, first. Twelve
years ago last June she was born. And she weren't as pretty as my girl's
baby, that was born the same day--though they looked alike, too.

"My girl's name was Elizabeth, but she's dead. She was a sight prettier
than Lizzie Anderson that married Jim Ellison. But my girl married Tom
Howland, and he ran away and left her, and that just before the baby was
born. And her baby, Elizabeth Howland, was born the same day, I tell
you, as Lizzie Ellison's baby. That one was named Elizabeth,
too--Elizabeth Ellison. That's Bess.

"And when the two babies were born, why we were poor and Jim Ellison was
well-to-do. The Thorntons got in debt, and he bought up the mortgages.
And when Bess Ellison was born, her mother was so ill she didn't see the
baby for many weeks; and my girl went up to the house in about three
weeks to nurse both babies, we being poor. And I went up, too, to look
after things.

"I guess my girl was wild, too, though I won't blame her now. One day
she went to town and didn't come back; and she left me a note, saying
she wouldn't ever come back, anyway. And I could bring up the
baby--which I didn't like to do, because I'd brought up one, and now
she'd run away.

"So I was getting ready to go back to the house and take the baby with
me; and I took care of both babies for a day or two. And just as I was
planning to go back, there lay the two, side by side in the bed; and I
could hardly tell which was which--they looked so much alike.

"Then what put it into my head, I don't know. But I thought that, if I
changed the two, nobody'd know, because Bess Ellison's mother hadn't
seen her. And I thought of how the property would come back to the
Thorntons that way, if I put my girl's Bess in the other's place. And I
up and did it, quick.

"Then, when I got home with Lizzie Ellison's baby, why I found I'd been
so hasty I'd brought away a chain and bit of money, that they'd put
about her neck. It was an old coin that had been in the family for
years, and was thought to carry good luck--so I learned afterwards. I
meant to take it back, but I couldn't, right away, and then I