tory
about fighting that would make you wish never to fight again. Perhaps I
will, sometime; but not now, for this must be a happy day and I do not
want to sadden it by telling you too much about the shadows that cloud
my life."

He looked up with a pained expression. "Has thee had troubles?" he
asked.

"Great troubles, and they are not ended yet. I should be very wretched,
but for you and your dear parents. You are but a child, and yet it would
comfort me to tell you that I love your uncle with a love that can never
die. And so when I ask you about him you will tell me everything you
know, will you not? And remember that in doing so you are helping to
make happy a poor heart that carries heavy burdens. There, that will do.
I have told you more, perhaps, than I ought; but although you are young,
I am sure that you are brave and true. And so, if there is any story
about your uncle which you have never told me, let me hear it now. And
if there is not, tell me one that you have told me over and over again."

"Did I ever tell thee how he saved a little lamb from drowning?"

"No! did he do that?"

"Yes, he did! Thee knows that when the snow melts, this little brook
swells up into a great river and sometimes it happens so suddenly that
even the grown people are scared. It did that day, and came just pouring
out of those woods and through the meadow where our old Maisie was
playing with two little lambs. One of them was bounding around her, and
it slipped over the edge of the bank and fell into the bed of the creek.
It wasn't a very high bank, you know; but the lamb was little, and it
just stood bleating in the bed, and its mother stood bleating on the
bank. Well, Uncle David heard them and started to see what was the
matter, and though the rain had begun to fall, he ran across the field
as hard as he could. But by the time he reached the place the flood
caught up the little lamb and rolled it over and over like a ball. Uncle
Dave didn't even wait to take off his coat, but plunged right into that
water, boiling like a soap kettle, and swam out and grabbed that little
lamb and hung to it until he landed down there on a high bank a quarter
of a mile away. What does thee think of that, Pepeeta?"

Her eyes kindled; pride swelled in her heart, and her spirits rose with
that wild feeling of joy with which women always hear of the bold deeds
of those they love.

"How beautiful and noble he is," she cried.

"And strong!" add