n the end, been of no use at all, and had seemed to go to
pieces just when he was most needed. His father had put it all down to
Cassy Mavor, who had unsettled things since she had come to Lumley's,
and being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had with an
exaggerated care. Prosperity had not softened him; it had given him
an arrogance unduly emphasised by a reputation for rigid virtue and
honesty. The indirect attack which Andrew now made on George's memory
roused him to anger, as much because it seemed to challenge his own
judgment as cast a slight on the name of the boy whom he had cast off,
yet who had a firmer hold on his heart than any human being ever had.
It had only been pride which had prevented him from making it up with
George before it was too late; but, all the more, he was set against
the woman who "kicked up her heels for a living"; and, all the more, he
resented Black Andy, who, in his own grim way, had managed to remain a
partner with him in their present prosperity, and had done so little for
it.

"George helped to make what you've got, Andy," he said darkly now. "The
West missed George. The West said, 'There was a good man ruined by a
woman.' The West'd never think anything or anybody missed you, 'cept
yourself. When you went North, it never missed you; when you come back,
its jaw fell. You wasn't fit to black George's boots."

Black Andy's mouth took on a bitter sort of smile, and his eyes drooped
furtively, as he struck the damper of the stove heavily with his foot,
then he replied slowly:

"Well, that's all right; but if I wasn't fit to black his boots,
it ain't my fault. I git my nature honest, as he did. We wasn't any
cross-breeds, I s'pose. We got the strain direct, and we was all right
on her side." He jerked his head towards Aunt Kate, whose face was
growing pale. She interposed now.

"Can't you leave the dead alone?" she asked in a voice ringing a little.
"Can't you let them rest? Ain't it enough to quarrel about the living?
Cassy'll be here soon," she added, peering out of the window, "and if I
was you, I'd try and not make her sorry she ever married a Baragar. It
ain't a feeling that'd make a sick woman live long."

Aunt Kate did not strike often, but when she did, she struck hard.
Abel Baragar staggered a little under this blow, for, at the moment, it
seemed to him that he saw his dead wife's face looking at him from the
chair where her sister now sat. Down in his ill-furn