by her side and make faces at him. To-day they had carried
it too far when one of them, just out in the church yard, pushed him
rudely as he walked proudly by the side of his mother, looking
straight before him, in his military way, and not so much as giving
them a glance.

"Wood's-colt," sneered the boy in his ear, as he pushed him.

"No--thoroughbred"--came back, and with it a blow which sent the
intruder backward on the grass.

Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he walked calmly on by
the side of his mother.

"Jimmie--Jimmie!" was all she said as she slipped into the church.

"I guess you must be a new-comer," remarked Archie B. indifferently
to the boy who was wiping the blood from his face as he arose from
the ground and looked sillily around. "That boy Jim Adams is my
pardner an' I could er tole you what you'd git by meddlin' with him.
He's gone in with his mother now, but him an' me--we're in
alliance--we fights for each other. Feel like you got enough?"--and
Archie B. got up closer and made motions as if to shed his coat.

The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off.

To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had been hitched up and
the Bishop sat in the old buggy.

Bud Billings stood by holding the bit, stroking the old horse's neck
and every now and then striking a fierce attitude, saying
"Whoa--whoa--suh!"

As usual, Ben Butler was asleep.

"Turn him loose, Bud," said the old man humoring the slubber--"I've
got the reins an' he can't run away now. I can't take you home
to-day--I'm gwinter take Margaret, an' you an' Jimmie can come along
together."

No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home and had any
standing left, in Cottontown.

And soon they were jogging along down the mountain side, toward the
cabin where the woman lived and supported herself and boy by her
needle.

To-day Margaret was agitated and excited--more than the Bishop had
ever known her to be. He knew the reason, for clean-shaved and neatly
dressed, Jack Bracken passed her on the road to church that morning,
and as they rode along the Bishop told her it was indeed Jack whom
she had seen, "an' he loves you yet, Margaret," he said.

She turned pink under her bonnet. How pretty and fresh she
looked--thought the Bishop--and what purity in a face to have such a
name.

"It _was_ Jack, then," she said simply--"tell me about him, please."

"By the grace of God he has reformed," said the old
man--"an