re
was no solace for her, grieving for her dead husband. She could not
weep, because the tears would be misconstrued.

Her father's kind words had been a great support to her.

"Ye may have gone wrong, Lizzi, but I'll ne'er believe it till ye tell
it me."

The deep tenderness of his tones had touched her where the tears lay,
and they rose, overflowing the obstruction her will had built against
their flood. She fell at his feet. It was Saturday night, and he sat in
his split-bottomed chair, resting. She laid her head on his knee, and
sobbed and wept convulsively. His shaking hand stroked caressingly her
soft black hair, and he murmured low lullaby words as if soothing a
child. His conviction had been unhesitatingly expressed, but his
sympathy could not find suitable language except in a song that was used
to hush a crying infant.

He was seventy years old. His hair and beard were pure white. His broad
chest and square shoulders told the story of his vigorous age. It was
not to frown that he contracted his eyebrows, but to narrow his vision,
while he fixed a gentle look on his daughter, for whom his heart ached,
but in whom he believed. No, he did not frown on her. He never did
shadow her babyhood, her childhood, her dawning womanhood, nor now would
he her approaching motherhood, by scowl of his. He sat bowing above his
daughter, not casting a stone at her, but quivering over her head a
blessing of trust.

His wife tottered down the stairs, and Lizzi made a movement as if to
arise, but he kept her at his knee.

Mrs. McAnay was not a hard woman, but she had to the full measure her
sex's vindictiveness against the woman who is weak and it was difficult
for her not to relieve her mind of what she considered its just
sentiments towards her daughter. Yet she pitied Lizzi. She stopped at
the foot of the stairs and gazed wonderingly at the father and daughter.
Peter did not speak and Lizzi remained on her knees. Mrs. McAnay slowly
approached her child and bent over her.

"I am glad yer confessin', girl," she said in a weak, quavering voice.

Lizzi shivered. Her mother's hand resting on her head was not cold, but
the knowledge that she yet withheld from her parents what they should
know sent a chill to her heart.

"Tain't that yet, mother," said Peter, "for I'm thinkin' she ain't got
anything to confess that's wrong. I was sayin' something to her that
made her cry, that's all."

The door opened, and Levi and Matthi e