'--by folks that
belong to you, I mean. Some of the Ladies' Aiders did call me that; and
of course that was pretty nice, but not so nice as if they had belonged
to me, like you do. Oh, Aunt Polly, I'm so glad you belong to me!"

Aunt Polly did not answer. Her hand was at her throat again. Her eyes
were full of tears. She had turned away and was hurrying from the room
through the door by which the nurse had just entered.

It was that afternoon that Nancy ran out to Old Tom, who was cleaning
harnesses in the barn. Her eyes were wild.

"Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, guess what's happened," she panted. "You couldn't
guess in a thousand years--you couldn't, you couldn't!"

"Then I cal'late I won't try," retorted the man, grimly, "specially as
I hain't got more'n TEN ter live, anyhow, probably. You'd better tell me
first off, Nancy."

"Well, listen, then. Who do you s'pose is in the parlor now with the
mistress? Who, I say?"

Old Tom shook his head.

"There's no tellin'," he declared.

"Yes, there is. I'm tellin'. It's--John Pendleton!"

"Sho, now! You're jokin', girl."

"Not much I am--an' me a-lettin' him in myself--crutches an' all! An'
the team he come in a-waitin' this minute at the door for him, jest as
if he wa'n't the cranky old crosspatch he is, what never talks ter no
one! jest think, Mr. Tom--HIM a-callin' on HER!"

"Well, why not?" demanded the old man, a little aggressively.

Nancy gave him a scornful glance.

"As if you didn't know better'n me!" she derided.

"Eh?"

"Oh, you needn't be so innercent," she retorted with mock indignation;
"--you what led me wildgoose chasin' in the first place!"

"What do ye mean?"

Nancy glanced through the open barn door toward the house, and came a
step nearer to the old man.

"Listen! 'Twas you that was tellin' me Miss Polly had a lover in the
first place, wa'n't it? Well, one day I thinks I finds two and two, and
I puts 'em tergether an' makes four. But it turns out ter be five--an'
no four at all, at all!"

With a gesture of indifference Old Tom turned and fell to work.

"If you're goin' ter talk ter me, you've got ter talk plain horse
sense," he declared testily. "I never was no hand for figgers."

Nancy laughed.

"Well, it's this," she explained. "I heard somethin' that made me think
him an' Miss Polly was lovers."

"MR. PENDLETON!" Old Tom straightened up.

"Yes. Oh, I know now; he wasn't. It was that blessed child's mother he
was in love with, and th