ing, the simple room, the drowsy,
slender child, curled in his sheets, surrounded with song.

"Thank you, Onnie," said Sanford. "I suppose she loved him a lot. It's a
nice song. Goo' night."

As Onnie passed her master, he saw the stupid eyes full of tears.

"Now, why'll he be thankin' me," she muttered--"me that 'u'd die an'
stay in hell forever for him? Now I must go mend up the fish-bag your
Honor's brother's wife was for sendin' him an' which no decent fish
would be dyin' in."

"Aren't you going to take Jim Varian?" asked Rawling.

"I wouldn't be marryin' with Roosyvelt himself, that's President, an'
has his house built all of gold! Who'd be seein' he gets his meals, an'
no servants in the sufferin' land worth the curse of a heretic? Not the
agent, nor fifty of him," Onnie proclaimed, and marched away.

* * *

Sanford never came to scorn his slave or treat her as a servant. He was
proud of Onnie. She did not embarrass him by her all-embracing
attentions, although he weaned her of some of them as he grew into a
wood-ranging, silent boy, studious, and somewhat shy outside the feudal
valley. The Varian boys were sent, as each reached thirteen, to
Lawrenceville, and testified their gratitude to the patron by diligent
careers. They were Sanford's summer companions, with occasional visits
from his cousin Denis, whose mother disapproved of the valley and Onnie.

"I really don't see how Sanford can let the poor creature fondle him,"
she said. "Denny tells me she simply wails outside San's door if he
comes home wet or has a bruise. It's rather ludicrous, now that San's
fourteen. She writes to him at Saint Andrew's."

"I told her Saint Andrew's wasn't far from Boston, and she offered to
get her cousin Dermot--he's a bellhop at the Touraine--to valet him.
Imagine San with a valet at Saint Andrew's!" Rawling laughed.

"But San isn't spoiled," Peter observed, "and he's the idol of the
valley, Bob, even more than you are. Varian, McComas, Jansen--the whole
gang and their cubs. They'd slaughter any one who touched San."

"I don't see how you stand the place," said Mrs. Peter. "Even if the men
are respectful, they're so familiar. And anything could happen there.
Denny tells me you have Poles and Russians--all sorts of dreadful
people."

Her horror tinkled prettily in the Chinese drawing-room, but Rawling
sighed.

"We can't get the old sort--Scotch, Swedes, the _good_ Irish. We get any
old thing. Varian swears like a