'll do what ye want," murmured Tess, "if ye'll let us stay together
an' keep the baby."

"Yes, that is my plan," he replied.

Andy folded his short legs under him nervously.

"We want to stay together, me an' Tess does," he echoed, "an' the baby's
awful glad to live with us."

Young's lips curled an instant into a smile responsive to the quaint
statement.

"You remember, Tess," he resumed, "I have a lease of the house where
Graves used to live."

She answered only by a little forward bend of her head.

"My idea is this: I'll open the house, and you, Tess, can come there
with the baby. You can keep house in a little way for us all."

"Ye said Andy could live with--"

"Wait," interrupted the lawyer. "There're two nice rooms on the top
floor. You can arrange them for Bishop and he will be as snug as a bug
in a rug."

A sharp cry of joy broke from the young mother. She sat up straight. She
threw back the tangled curls, and leaning forward grasped the hand the
speaker thrust out to support her.

"Oh, what a good, good man!" she rejoiced. "An' me an' the baby'll love
ye forever, me an' the baby will."

Tessibel didn't remember she'd made the same promise to another man when
she'd begged him in vain to help her. She only knew that Deforrest Young
was offering herself and her little child a home, and a safe refuge for
Andy Bishop.

"It won't be all for you, you understand, child," said Deforrest.
"Think! I'll have a home, too, and you can study and work."

"An' some day when I'm earnin' money, and Andy's free, we'll pay you all
back," the girl interjected.

"Well, we won't worry about that now!... As soon as you're well enough,
I'll move you all up to the house. Tomorrow I'll see that coal and
things're sent down from town!"

The reply to his offer was a tighter squeeze from the squatter girl's
hand, and a sob from the dwarf. Unable to restrain his joy, the wee man
bounded from the floor and fled up the ladder into the garret. For a
time the man and girl in the room below sat silent, and all was quiet in
the shanty save the voice of Andy Bishop giving forth a thanksgiving
such as he had never expressed before.

* * * * *

Two weeks later a light filtered through the closed shutters of Young's
residence on the hill. The old Graves house creaked in the blustery
March gale. The hurtling snow-particles rattled upon the blinds and
against the clapboards like small shot. Deforres