up and nourished all
their lives on the strictest and straightest of old-fashioned beliefs
both as regards this world and that which is to come, this was a
tragedy.

They could not be brought to see it in any other light. As their
neighbours said, "Cy Morgan never hilt up his head again after Paul
married the play-acting woman." But perhaps it was less his
humiliation than his sorrow which bowed down his erect form and
sprinkled grey in his thick black hair that fifty years had hitherto
spared. For Paul, forgetting the sacrifices his mother and father had
made for him, had bitterly resented the letter of protest his father
had written concerning his marriage. He wrote one angry, unfilial
letter back and then came silence. Between grief and shame Cyrus and
Deborah Morgan grew old rapidly in the year that followed.

At the end of that time Elinor Morgan, the mother of an hour, died;
three months later Paul Morgan was killed in a railroad collision.
After the funeral Cyrus Morgan brought home to his wife their son's
little daughter, Joscelyn Morgan.

Her aunt, Annice Ashton, had wanted the baby. Cyrus Morgan had been
almost rude in his refusal. His son's daughter should never be brought
up by an actress; it was bad enough that her mother had been one and
had doubtless transmitted the taint to her child. But in Spring
Valley, if anywhere, it might be eradicated.

At first neither Cyrus nor Deborah cared much for Joscelyn. They
resented her parentage, her strange, un-Morgan-like name, and the
pronounced resemblance she bore to the dark-haired, dark-eyed mother
they had never seen. All the Morgans had been fair. If Joscelyn had
had Paul's blue eyes and golden curls her grandfather and grandmother
would have loved her sooner.

But the love came ... it had to. No living mortal could have resisted
Joscelyn. She was the most winsome and lovable little mite of babyhood
that ever toddled. Her big dark eyes overflowed with laughter before
she could speak, her puckered red mouth broke constantly into dimples
and cooing sounds. She had ways that no orthodox Spring Valley baby
ever thought of having. Every smile was a caress, every gurgle of
attempted speech a song. Her grandparents came to worship her and were
stricter than ever with her by reason of their love. Because she was
so dear to them she must be saved from her mother's blood.

Joscelyn shot up through a roly-poly childhood into slim, bewitching
girlhood in a chill r