up his gun and started heavily for the door. His eyes met the
eyes of his daughter as she drew the frosty latch for him. There was a
pause, then he pulled his cap over his eyes with a long grunt.

"Dear dad," she said, under her breath.

"I guess," he observed unsteadily, "you're ashamed of me, Jess."

She put both arms around his neck and laid her head against his.

"I think as you do," she said; "God did not create the partridges for
Mr. Gordon--but, darling dad, you will never, never again take even one
grain of buckwheat from him, will you?"

"His father robbed mine," said Jocelyn, with a surly shrug. But she was
content with his answer and his rough kiss, and when he had gone out
into the gray morning, calling his mongrel setter from its kennel, she
went back up the stairs and threw herself on her icy bed. But her little
face was hot with tearless shame, and misery numbed her limbs, and she
cried out in her heart for God to punish old Gordon's sin from
generation to generation--meaning that young Gordon should suffer for
the sins of his father. Yet through her torture and the burning anger of
her prayer ran a silent undercurrent, a voiceless call for mercy upon
her and upon all she loved, her father and--young Gordon.

After a while she fell asleep dreaming of young Gordon. She had never
seen him except Sundays in church, but now she dreamed he came into her
pew and offered her a hymn-book of ivory and silver; and she dreamed
they sang from it together until the church thrilled with their united
voices. But the song they sang seemed to pain her, and her voice hurt
her throat. His voice, too, grew harsh and piercing, and--she awoke with
the sun in her eyes and the strident cries of the blue-jays in her ears.

Under her window she heard somebody moving. It was her father, already
returned, and he stood by the door, drawing and plucking half a dozen
woodcock.

When she had bathed and dressed, she found the birds on the
kitchen-table ready for the oven, and she set about her household duties
with a glance through the window where Jocelyn, crouching on the bank of
the dark stream, was examining his set-lines one by one.

The sun hung above the forest, sending fierce streams of light over the
flaming, frost-ripened foliage. A belt of cloud choked the mountain
gorge in the north; the alders were smoking with chilly haze.

As she passed across the yard towards the spring, bucket in hand, her
father called out: "