ight irregularity in his paternal arrangements.

"How do you know?" asked Jim, still puzzled. It did not occur to him
that there was anything unfriendly in the conversation--"You never saw
them!"

"Well," said Bennie, crowded now to play his highest card, "anyway,
your mother is a bad woman."

Jim looked at him in blank astonishment. His mother a bad woman, his
dear mother! The whole world turned suddenly red to Jim Gray--he did
not need any one to tell him that the time had come to fight.

The cries of Bennie Cowan brought the teacher flying. Bennie, with
bleeding lip and blackened eyes, was rescued, and a tribunal sat
forthwith on the case.

James Gray refused to tell what Bennie Cowan had said. His tongue
could not form the words of blasphemy. The other children, all of whom
had heard his history unfavorably discussed at home, did not help him,
and the case went against the boy who had no friends. Exaggerated
tales were told of his violence. By the end of the week he had struck
Bennie Cowan with a knife. A few days later it was told that he had
kicked the teacher. Nervous mothers were afraid to have their children
exposed to the danger of playing with such a vicious child.

One day a note was given to him to take home. It was from the
trustees, asking Mrs. Gray if she would kindly keep her son James at
home, for his ungovernable temper made it unsafe for other children to
play with him.

That was three years ago. Annie Gray and her son were as much a
mystery as ever. She looked well, dressed well, rode astride, wore
bloomers, and used a rifle, and seemed able to live without either the
consent or good-will of the neighborhood.

In harvest time she still further outraged public opinion by keeping
a hired man, who, being a virtuous man, who had respect for public
opinion, even if she hadn't, claimed fifteen dollars a month extra for
a sort of moral insurance against loss of reputation. She paid the
money so cheerfully that the virtuous man was sorry he had not made it
twenty!

It was to this district, with its under-current of human passions,
mystery and misunderstanding, that Pearl Watson came. The miracle of
Spring was going on--bare trees budding, dead flowers springing; the
river which had been a prisoner all winter, running brimming full,
its ice all gone, and only little white cakes of foam riding on its
current. Over all was the pervading Spring smell of fresh earth, and
the distant smoulder of prair