d Foresta
again.

Ensal and Tiara returned to Mrs. Crawford's.

CHAPTER VIII.

_A Messenger That Hesitates._

Mrs. Crump sat in her room, her elbows propped up on her knees and her
cheeks resting on her hands. The death of Henry, her only boy, was
indeed a severe blow to her, but at this particular moment she was
bearing up well under it, reserving her strength by a supreme effort of
her will to the end that she might comfort her husband when he became
aware of the tragedy.

Foresta had gone for her father with the understanding that she was not
to tell him what had occurred, but was to allow her mother to break the
news to him upon his arrival home.

Every step that Foresta took on her sorrowful journey was accompanied by
a rain of tears. As she drew near the place where her father was at
work, she stopped and tried to remove all traces of sorrow. She wiped
and wiped her eyes, but the tears persisted in flowing. Her father was
at work in a quarry as a rock breaker.

The city was using small stones as a sort of pavement for the streets,
and aged Negro men were given the work of breaking rocks into fragments
to be used in that way. The occupation was not an ideal one, as
employment was of a fluctuating character, and the sitting on the
ground, often damp, was not conducive to health. The amount earned in
proportion to the labor performed was very small. But aged men unable to
move about very much found this to be about all that they could do. So,
the rock pile grew to be the accepted goal of all the Negro men who wore
themselves out in other service without laying aside a competence or
establishing themselves permanently in the good graces of their
employees.

There were many who did thus establish themselves, and Ford Crump would
have been such a one but for the following chain of circumstances, to
which account you may give heed while waiting on Foresta to feel
self-possessed enough to approach her father.

Soon after the Civil War Mr. Arthur Daleman came to Almaville and
entered business. Ford Crump, Foresta's father, then a young man, was
his first Negro employee. The business grew until Mr. Daleman was
rightly classed as a very rich man.

For several years after Mr. Arthur Daleman's marriage, no children had
come to bless their home. Early one morning, as Mr. Daleman was crossing
the bridge, he saw a young white girl acting rather suspiciously,
peering up and down the bridge. Drawing near, he f