look on his
face that went to her heart like a knife. She saw a lonely and deserted
old man sitting at his cold and cheerless breakfast, and with a
remorseful cry she ran across the floor and took him in her arms,
kissing him again and again, while Mr. John Jennings and his wife stood
in the door.

"Poor ol' Pap! Merry couldn't leave you. She's come back to stay as long
as he lives."

The old man remained cold and stern. His deep voice had a raucous note
in it as he pushed her away from him, noticing no one else.

"But how do you come back t' me?"

The girl grew rosy, but she stood proudly up.

"I come back a wife of a _man_, Pap; a wife like my mother, an' this t'
hang beside hers;" and she laid down a rolled piece of parchment.

"Take it an' go," growled he; "take yer lazy lubber an' git out o' my
sight. I raised ye, took keer o' ye when ye was little, sent ye t'
school, bought ye dresses,--done every thin' for ye I could, 'lowin' t'
have ye stand by me when I got old,--but no, ye must go back on yer ol'
pap, an' go off in the night with a good-f'r-nothin' houn' that nobuddy
knows anything about--a feller that never done a thing fer ye in the
world"----

"What did you do for mother that she left _her_ father and mother and
went with you? How much did you have when you took her away from her
good home an' brought her away out here among the wolves an' Indians?
I've heard you an' her say a hundred times that you didn't have a chair
in the house. Now, why do you talk so t' me when I want t' git--when
Lime comes and asks for me?"

The old man was staggered. He looked at the smiling face of John
Jennings and the tearful face of Mrs. Jennings, who had returned with
Lyman. But his face hardened again as he caught sight of Lime looking in
at him. His absurd pride would not let him relent. Lime saw it, and
stepped forward.

"Ol' man, I want t' take a little inning now. I'm a fair, square man. I
asked ye fer Merry as a man should. I told you I'd had hard luck, when I
first came here. I had five thousand dollars in clean cash stole from
me. I hain't got a thing now except credit, but that's good fer enough
t' stock a little farm with. Now, I wan' to be fair and square in this
thing. You wan' to rent a farm; I need one. Let me have the river
eighty, or I'll take the whole business on a share of a third an' Merry
Etty, and I to stay here with you jest as if nothin' 'd happened. Come,
now, what d' y' say?"

There was