the boy baby under the coverlet with
Tessibel.

A weary apathy had settled over the young mother. Strange dreams filled
the small room with haunting, tangible things which she could reach out
and touch if she dared. The rafters, too, were peopled with faces partly
hidden in the dry nets. But she seemed to be staring at something out
and beyond--as Daddy Skinner, too, had stared that never-to-be-forgotten
night.

The past months, where the grey days and sun days had all been the same,
moved vaguely in silent procession before her. She had lived through
them like a pale ghost indifferent alike to sunshine or shadow, and this
night she had drained to the last drop the bitter cup Frederick Graves
had given her to drink. Frederick, her husband, her beloved! She thought
of him indifferently. Even his babe at her breast seemed unimportant.
She considered them without emotion. But the ghostly faces, hovering
among the nets, interested her.

Then, distinctly from among them advanced a figure, a dear, familiar
figure. Daddy Skinner ... the same old adorable daddy--his shaggy,
thready beard hanging over his chest. For one single instant he bent
over her, lovingly laid his hand upon the bronze curls and smiled in the
way he had of doing before he had gone away with mummy. Tess flung up
her hands.

"Daddy! Daddy Skinner!" she cried.

The movement startled the babe from his sleep. The dwarf, roused by the
cries scrambled to the open hole.

"Tessibel--Tess," he called brokenly.

The girl lifted heavy lids.

"Daddy was here, Andy," she wailed in misery. "My own Daddy Skinner. I
want to go with him.... I can't live any longer without him."

"Can I come down, brat?" begged the dwarf, huskily.

"Yep," whispered Tess. "Mother Moll air gone."

"I heard 'er when she went," said Andy, and he slipped down the ladder.

The babe's shrill cry continued as the dwarf went to the bed.

"Yer daddy don't need ye as much as me an' the little feller. Let me
take 'im--I ain't seen 'im yet, ye know."

Andy bent over the cot. Gently he lifted the infant and carried him
nearer the lamp's dim rays. He stood gazing intently into the rosy face.
Then, he raised a tiny hand and spread first one finger, then each baby
fellow out in his own palm.

"Why he's real handsome," he decided at last. "Brat, he air the most
beautifulest in the world!"

At the last words he turned shining eyes toward Tessibel. She lay
gazing, not at Andy or the babe in