etimes it surprises himself. But most of the
mightiest _made_ their own chance."

"I know that. I'm going to make mine. Power is what I want an' it's what
I'm goin' to have. But I've got to get away from here. Julius Caesar
couldn't do nothin' here."

When Jefferson Edwardes came down stairs Mary, who had slipped timidly
away, edged into the room, bashful and adorned. She had put on her best
dress, and her lustrous hair was braided and coiled on her head, after
the instruction of one of her fashion plates. As the visitor saw her he
once more checked his inclination to laugh, for the marvelous mismated
eyes were fixed on his face and they held an almost passionate anxiety
to be approved by the man who had prophesied her beauty. The thin child
with her hair so inappropriately dressed in the style of her fashionable
elders--or what she fondly believed to be their style--would have been a
ludicrous little figure had she not been, in her eagerness, too serious
for humor. The one detail in which she thought she could follow the
dictates of Fashion's decree was this arrangement of her hair, and that
she had attempted. Now she stood first on one foot then on the other,
watching in suspense to see if she had succeeded.

So the stranger slipped over unobserved and with a courtier's smile
raised a tiny hand to his lips.

"I am a good prophet," he assured her, and now he let the suppressed
merriment dance at will in his pupils, "but don't forget that a queen's
queenliest necessity is--kindness."

And so, while Mrs. Burton and the elderly aunt busied themselves over
the stove and the father napped restlessly, the sleeping thing that had
not heretofore given warning was ripening for its outburst.

When the evening meal was finished and the family sat listening to the
stranger's talk, Thomas Burton suddenly demanded: "Are they still
quittin' over your way?"

Young Edwardes nodded.

"Except for one or two shiftless fellows like myself," he responded,
"my immediate section is deserted. A half-dozen families moved out this
fall. The general verdict seems to be that the fight's not worth while."

Tom Burton growled deeply. "The country mayn't be much," he grudgingly
admitted, "but how do these fellers that are leavin' all they own behind
'em expect to better themselves? Ain't a few rocky acres better'n none
at all? That's what I asks 'em and they ain't got no answer to give me.
Ain't a little bit better than nothin' whatsoever?"