rned cold as I thought of
how her affection might have been twisted into deviltry had it not been
so strangely brought home to me that she was a child, with a good deal
of the mother in her. I turned cold as I thought of her playing with her
doll while I had been out on the prairie laying poison plots against her
innocence, her defenselessness, her trust in me.

Why, she was like my mother! I had not thought of my mother for days.
When she had been young like Virginia, she must have been as beautiful;
and she had played with dolls; but never except while she was an
innocent child, as Virginia now was.

For the first time I talked of mother to Virginia. I told her of my
mother's goodness to me while Rucker was putting me out to work in the
factory--and Virginia grew hot with anger at Rucker, and very pitiful of
the poor little boy going to work before daylight and coming home after
dark. I told her of my running away, and of my life on the canal, with
all the beautiful things I had seen and the interesting things I had
done, leaving out the fighting and the bad things. I told her of how I
had lost my mother, and my years of search for her, ending at that
unmarked grave by the lake. Virginia's eyes shone with tears and she
softly pressed my hand.

I took from my little iron-bound trunk that letter which I had found in
the old hollow apple-tree, and we read it over together by the
flickering light of a small fire which I kindled for the purpose; and
from the very bottom of the trunk, wrapped in a white handkerchief
which I had bought for this use, I took that old worn-out shoe which I
had found that dark day at Tempe--and I began telling Virginia how it
was that it was so run over, and worn in such a peculiar way.

My mother had worked so hard for me that she had had a good deal of
trouble with her feet--and such a flood of sorrow came over me that I
broke down and cried. I cried for my mother, and for joy at being able
to think of her again, and for guilt, and with such a mingling of
feeling that finally I started to rush off into the darkness--but
Virginia clung to me and wiped away my tears and would not let me go.
She said she was afraid to be left alone, and wanted me with her--and
that I was a good boy. She didn't wonder that my mother wanted to work
for me--it must have been almost the only comfort she had.

"If she had only lived," I said, "so I could have made a home for her!"

"She knows all about that," sa