mountain girl's eyes filled and the tears streamed down her sallow
cheeks, while her twisted shoulders shook with the grief she could not
suppress, as she faltered: "My God-A'mighty! Miss Betty Jo, I--I--didn't
aim ter do hit! I sure didn't! 'Fore God, I'd er let 'em kill me first,
if I'd only had time ter think. But hit--hit--was me what told that
there woman how Mr. Burns was Brian Kent. Hit's--hit's--me what's ter
blame for gittin' her killed in the river an' him so nigh drowned. O
God! O God! If he'll only git well!

"An' I ain't a-feelin' toward you-all like I did, Miss Betty Jo. I
can't no more. I done left them clubhouse folks, after I knowed what has
happened, an' all day I been hangin' 'round here in the bresh. An' Lucy
Warden she done told me, this afternoon, 'bout how you-all was takin'
care of Mr. Burns, an' how you just naturally wouldn't let him die.
An'--an'--I kin see, now, what hit is that makes Auntie Sue and him an'
you-all so different from that there clubhouse gang an' pap an' me. An'
I ain't a-wantin' ter be like I been, no more, ever. I'd a heap rather
jump inter the river an' drown myself. 'Fore God, I would! An' I want
ter come back an' help you-all take care of him; an' live with Auntie
Sue; an'--an'--be a little might like youuns, if I kin. Will you let me,
Miss Betty Jo? Will you? I most know Auntie Sue would, if she was here."

Before the mountain girl had finished speaking, Betty Jo's arm was
around the poor twisted shoulders, and Betty Jo's eyes were answering
Judy's pleading.

And so, when Auntie Sue came home, it was Judy who met her at the
station, with "Old Prince" and the buggy; and as they drove down the
winding road to the little log house by the river, the mountain girl
told the old gentlewoman all that had happened in her absence.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RIVER.

Brian Kent recovered quickly from the effects of his experience in the
Elbow Rock rapids, and was soon able again to take up his work on the
little farm. Every day he labored in the garden, or in the clearing, or
at some task which did not rightly fall to those who rented the major
part of Auntie Sue's tillable acreage.

Auntie Sue had told him about her visit to the President of the Empire
Consolidated Savings Bank, and of the arrangement made by the banker--as
she understood it--for Brian's protection. But while the dear old lady
explained that Homer T. Ward was one of her pupils, she did not reveal
the relation