r, either. She is
a helpless, innocent little child, thrown on the world--that is all the
certificate of parentage I am asking for. She shall have what I never
had--a childhood."

He walked back and forth several times, turning sometimes to look at the
girl, whom the child was patting on the cheek while she put up her little
red mouth every now and then for kisses.

"Her mother is dead?" he asked at last, halting and looking down at her.

She thought his face was very hard and stern, and did not know it was
because he, too, longed to take her in his arms and ask for kisses.

"Her mother is dead."

"Then--I will take the child, if you will let me."

"I don't know," she said, and tried to smile up at him. "You don't seem
very eager."

"And you came back here for that?" he said, slowly, regarding her. "'Tana,
what of Max? What of your school?"

"Well, I guess I have money enough to have private teachers out here for
the things I don't know--and there are several of them! And as for Max--he
didn't say much. I saw Mr. Seldon in Chicago and he scolded me when I told
him I was coming back to the woods to stay--"

"To stay?" and he took a step nearer to her. "'Tana!"

"Don't you want me to?" she asked. "I thought maybe--after what you said
to me in the cabin--that day--"

"You'd better be careful!" he said. "Don't make me remember that
unless--unless you are willing to tell me what I told you that day--unless
you are willing to say that you--care for me--that you will be my wife.
God knows I never hoped to say this to you. I have fought myself into the
idea that you belong to Max. But now that it is said--answer me!"

She smiled up at him and kissed the child happily.

"What shall I say?" she asked. "You should know without words. I told you
once I would make coffee for no man but you. Do you remember? Well, I have
come back to you for that. And see! I don't wear Max's ring any longer.
Don't you understand?"

"That you have come back to _me_--'Tana!"

"Now don't eat me! I may not always be a blessing, so don't be too
jubilant. I have bad blood in my veins, but you have had fair warning."

He only laughed and drew her to him, and she could never again say no man
had kissed her.

"'Tana!" said the child, "'ook."

She looked where the little hand pointed and saw all the clouds of the
east flooded with gold, and higher up they lay blushing above the far
hills.

A new day was creeping over the mountains to ba