ght that be you'd be holdin'?"

"Just a rattle off a snake."

She examined the six-tiered, smoky rattle with a positive light in her
dull, black eyes and crossed herself.

"A queer country, where they do be bellin' the snakes! I heard the like
in the gover'ment school before I did come over the west water, but I
misbelieved the same. God's ways is strange, as the priests will be
sayin'."

"You can have it," said Sanford, and ran off to inquire of his mother
the difference between women and ladies.

Rawling, riding slowly, came up the driveway from the single lane of his
village, and found the gigantic girl sitting on the steps so absorbed in
this sinister toy that she jumped with a little yelp when he dismounted.

"What have you there?" he asked, using his most engaging smile.

"'Tis a snake's bell, your Honor, which Master San did be givin' me.
'Tis welcome indeed, as I lost off my holy medal, bein' sick, forever on
the steamship crossin' the west water."

"But--can you use a rattle for a holy medal?" said Rawling.

"The gifts of children are the blessin's of Mary's self," Onnie
maintained. She squatted on the gravel and hunted for one of the big
hair-pins her jump had loosened, then used it to pierce the topmost
shell. Rawling leaned against his saddle, watching the huge hands, and
Pat Sheehan, the old coachman, chuckled, coming up for the tired horse.

"You'll be from the West," he said, "where they string sea-shells."

"I am, an' you'll be from Dublin, by the sound of your speakin'. So was
my father, who is now drowned forever, and with his wooden leg," she
added mournfully, finding a cord in some recess of her pocket, entangled
there with a rosary and a cluster of small fishhooks. She patted the odd
scapular into the cleft of her bosom and smiled at Rawling. "Them in the
kitchen are tellin' me you'll be ownin' this whole country an' sixty
miles of it, all the trees an' hills. You'll be no less than a
President's son, then, your Honor."

Pat led the horse off hastily, and Rawling explained that his lineage
was not so interesting. The girl had arrived the night before, sent on
by an Oil City agency, and Mrs. Rawling had accepted the Amazon as
manna-fall. The lumber valley was ten miles above a tiny railroad
station, and servants had to be tempted with triple wages, were
transient, or married an employee before a month could pass. The valley
women regarded Rawling as their patron, heir of his father, and