ndow.
Mechanically, by habit, his dim eyes swept along the beach by the
breakers' edge. "What's the use, any way?" he added.

"We, that always carried ourselves so high, for all our being poor!
It's God's mercy that took your father before he could see this day.
'Twould have broken his sperrit. Your father a Josselin, and me a
Pocock, with lands of my own--if right was law in this world; and now to
be stripped naked and marched through the streets!"

Ruth's eyes met the Collector's. He stood within the doorway, and was
regarding her curiously. She did not plead or protest; only, as their
eyes met, a flush rose to her cheek, and he guessed rightly that the
touch of shame was for her mother, not for herself. The flush deepened
as old Josselin turned and said apologetically,--

"You mustn't mind M'ria. She's weak-minded. Always was; but sence her
husband was drowned--he was my second son--she've lost whatever wits she
had. The gal here was born about that time." Here the old man launched
into some obstetrical guesswork, using the plainest words.
It embarrassed the Collector; the girl did not so much as wince.

"Poor might be stood," moaned the woman; "but poor and shamed!"
Then of a sudden, as though recollecting herself, she arose with an air
of mincing gentility. "Ruth," she said, "it's little we can offer the
gentleman, but you _might_ get out the bread and cheese, after his being
so kind to you."

"Sit down, you dormed fool," commanded her father-in-law. "Here, fetch
your seat over to the look-out, an' tell me if that's a log I see
floatin'. She's wonderful good at that," he explained, without lowering
his voice, "and it'll keep her quiet. It's true, though, what she said
about the property. Thousands of acres, if she had her rights--up this
side of the Kennebee." He jerked a thumb northwards. "The Pococks
bought it off one of the Gorges, gettin' on for a hundred years sence;
and by rights, as I say, a seventh share oughter be hers. But lawyers!
The law's like a ship's pump: pour enough in for a start, and it'll
reward ye with floods. But where's the money to start it?"

The Collector scarcely heard him. His eyes were on Ruth's face.
He had walked briskly down from the Town Square to the Bowling Green
Inn, refreshed himself, let saddle his horse, and set forth, leaving
orders for his coach to follow. At the summit of the hill above Port
Nassau he had overtaken the cart with the poor girl lying