ld me that herself."

Joel groaned angrily. "I'm not surprised at anything the people around
here would say and believe," he said, his lips drawn tight, his eyes
holding fierce fires that were bursting into flames.

"Joel," Martha Jane said, as they were nearing their home, "you must
take yourself in hand. This is showing on you. Tilly's marriage was bad
enough, but this is hurting you even more."

"Oh, don't bother about me!" he cried, testily. "I'm a man and can stand
anything. But you must look after her. Do you understand? You must come
in to-morrow early and stay all day. She will need somebody besides that
sour-faced, crabbed old pair that is with her. They will kill her or
drive her insane."

"I'll do it--you may depend on me, brother," Martha Jane promised, as he
helped her from the buggy at the gate.

CHAPTER XXXVI

On the morning following their arrival at Bristol, John and Dora took
the train for New York. "We'll sit in the chair-car," he proposed. "It
has revolving fans and is more roomy. They say this train is usually
crowded."

Dora smiled expectantly as she followed him into the luxurious coach.
She had slept well, had eaten a good breakfast, and seemed brighter than
she had the day before. She was still a grotesque-looking creature in
the dress which was too long for a child of her age, and the hat that
was too large, being one Jane Holder, in one of her rare moments of mild
self-reproach, had discarded and hastily retrimmed for her niece. But
John Trott was not critical of outward appearances. There was something
beneath the surface in Dora--an unspoken reliance on him, a gentle
betrayal of pride and confidence in him, not to mention her abject
helplessness, which atoned for all external shortcomings. The whole
world looked dark to him, but he had determined that Dora should not
dwell in the shadow, if he could prevent it.

They were soon well into the state of Virginia. The train was quite
crowded and John congratulated himself on securing seats in the
parlor-car. From the window Dora listlessly viewed the back-drifting
fields and forests, the tobacco which she had never seen growing before,
and the old-fashioned houses on the farms as well as in the towns and
villages.

It was near night. Washington was only a few hours away.

"We are going to cross a high trestle over a ravine," John explained to
his charge. "I heard a man talking about it. There! that is the whistle.
I guess the