baby bird's ... a pitiful unborn expression which
would go with the brat to its grave.

She stooped down and placed the toad again in his hole, shoving him deep
down into his cavity, for the sun was going down and Frederick would
sleep as long as there were no flies about.

The boy spoke again.

"Mammy says as how if ye don't stop runnin' wild ye'll be worse than
Myry with another--"

Suddenly the clenched fist of the girl flew up and struck the fisherman
with a swiftness and force that took him from his feet. Tessibel was
standing over him rigidly.

"I hates ye, I hates ye, I'd ruther marry--yep, I'd ruther marry my toad
or a man as ugly as him than you, Ezry Longman, does yer hear, does yer
hear?"

The lumbering body raised itself from the ground. The squint eyes were
almost closed, only a glint of the gray ring that surrounded the pupil
showing between the lids.

"Ye think that ye can hide from me what ye be a doin'," burst out Ezra.
"Why did ye name that toad after the student of Minister Graves? Just
'cause he wears nice clothes and don't do no honest rakin' of hay, nor
catchin' a fish only by trollin'. Ye loves that feller, that's what ye
does."

Bewilderment leapt alive in the girl's brown eyes. The shade deepened
almost to black as the thought the boy had planted in the sensitive mind
took root and grew. Then the dirty young face flooded with crimson which
tinted the rounded neck and colored the low forehead, and Tess dropped
down beside the log and covered her face with her hands. The fisherman
was so surprised that he uttered not a word while the wild storm broke
over the girl's heart, dying away in a smothered moan.

Without a glance at the boy, she lifted herself slowly from the earth
and walking, erect and tall, into her father's hut, closed the door with
a bang. She slipped the leather fastening into its place and dazedly
adjusted the iron peg in the opening to hold it. Tessibel's heart had
manifested its hitherto unknown burden and the woman lived amid the dirt
and squalor of the fisherman's cabin.

Tessibel's peremptory leaving and the hauteur in her face were so
foreign to her that Ezra Longman did not dare follow. He leaned upon his
rake looking after her, his gray eyes gathered into an incomprehensive
squint. Had Tess again cuffed his ears, he would have been secretly
delighted; but this manner, so unlike her, seemed to take her as far
above him as that flock of black crows yonder, flying