e, Tess noted emotion
in a man. Once in Daddy Skinner, in the jail--she had given way before
it. And now in the strong friend of her father, who laid his face on the
body of the infant, and sobbed.

In an instant Tess was on her knees before him.

"Air ye a-blattin' 'cause ye thinks it air my brat? Aw, ye knows it
ain't. Ye knows I air but a-takin' care of it till its ma can. If I
swears by the student's God, will ye believe?"

Young rose, white and nervous, from his chair. With tender fingers he
placed the little one in the receptacle, set the rag securely between
its lips, and turned to Tess.

"I believe you, child," he said wearily. "I thought at first--oh, it
was an awful thought for me ... because I love you, Tessibel."

Tess blinked her eyes as if she were looking into a powerful sun. The
strong form of the lawyer was bending over her. She lifted her face to
his, not realizing the greatness of his love. She only knew that he was
her friend--Daddy's friend. She grasped his hands in hers, kissed them
tearfully, and took up the basket.

"I were a-goin' with ye on Thursday, but I can't now. Thank ye for
believin' me, and I'll work as hard as ye says I must, and if I air a
bad brat, then I air sorry."

She had gone out, crying bitterly, before he could say another word; but
a happier feeling was in his heart than had been for many weeks. She had
promised to work, and in that promise had failed, for the first time, to
utter the name of Frederick Graves.

* * * * *

"Tess air a-gettin' stylish," said Mrs. Longman, rattling the newspaper
one Sunday morning. "Her name air right here, in print."

"What do it say, Mammy?" asked Ezra, lighting his pipe with a piece of
burning paper.

"As how Tessie air a-goin' to see her Daddy, with the big man on the
hill."

Ben Letts shoved his big boots from one side to the other, plainly
disturbed by the news.

"Folks on the hill air a-doin' better if they minds their own business,
I air a-sayin'," grumbled he. "There ain't no reason why Orn Skinner
can't go dead, like other squatters has before him."

His red bandana handkerchief sought the blurred blue eye. A pair of
pale gray ones from above the smoking pipe of Ezra Longman settled upon
Ben Lett's face, with a tightening of the thick lids.

"Tessibel air so sure that her father air innocent that I hopes they
prove it," Myra Longman said, trundling her babe to and fro, in the huge
woode