g without God? He could
say again, as on the shore of the little pool, I believe in God
forever.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DILLON CLAN.

After the reception Arthur Dillon fell easily into the good graces of
the clan, and found his place quite naturally; but like the suspicious
intruder his ears and eyes remained wide open to catch the general
sentiment about himself, and the varying opinions as to his manners and
character. He began to perceive by degrees the magnitude of the task
which he had imposed upon himself; the act of disappearing was but a
trifle compared with the relationships crowding upon him in his new
environment. He would be forced to maintain them all with some likeness
to the method which would have come naturally to the real Dillon. The
clan made it easy for him. Since allowance had to be conceded to his
sickly condition, they formed no decisive opinions about him, accepting
pleasantly, until health and humor would urge him to speak of his own
accord, Anne's cloudy story of his adventures, of luck in the mines, and
of excuses for his long silence. All observed the new element in his
disposition; the boy who had been too heedless and headlong to notice
anything but what pleased him, now saw everything; and kept at the same
time a careful reserve about his past and present experiences, which
impressed his friends and filled Judy Haskell with dread.

"Tommy Higgins," she said, to Anne in an interval of housework, "kem
home from Texas pritty much the same, with a face an him as long as yer
arm, an' his mouth shut up like an old door. Even himself cudn't open
it. He spint money free, an' av coorse that talked for him. But wan day,
whin his mother was thryin' an a velvet sack he bought for her, an'
fightin' him bekase there was no fur collar to id, in walked his wife
an' three childher to him an' her, an' shtayed wid her ever afther.
Begob, she never said another word about fur collars, an' she never got
another velvet sack till she died. Tommy had money, enough to kape them
all decent, bud not enough for velvet and silk an' joolry. From that
minnit he got back his tongue, an' he talked himself almost to death
about what he didn't do, an' what he did do in Californy. So they med
him a tax-collecthor an' a shtump-speaker right away, an' that saved his
neighbors from dyin' o' fatague lishtenin' to his lies. Take care, Anne
Dillon, that this b'y o' yours hastn't a wife somewhere."

Anne was in the precis