I didn't encourage him to prolong his
visit; indeed, I told him that I preferred to be alone."

They turned out of the lane into a wood, crossed a bayou, and pursuing
their way a short distance further, Taylor halted, and handing the
Englishman his tub, pointed to a path that crossed the road. "That will
take you to the blacksmith shop," he said.

"Ah, you are very kind," Low replied, shouldering his treasure. He
turned down the path, but after going a short distance stopped and faced
about. "I say, there!" he cried. "Oh, Taylor. Just a moment. I wouldn't
mind having you over any evening, you know. You are a devilish decent
fellow."

"All right; you may look for me most any time. Take you out 'possum
hunting some night."

Low was now humping himself down the path, and Taylor turned to pursue
his way homeward, when once more the Englishman faced about and shouted:
"You are very kind, I'm sure. I shall be delighted."

Jim Taylor was master of a small plantation and sole inhabiter of the
house wherein he was born. In the garden, under a weeping-willow tree,
were the graves of his parents and of his sister, a little girl,
recalled with emotion--at night when a high wind was blowing, for she
had ever been afraid of a storm; and she died on a day when a fierce
gale up the river blew down a cottonwood tree in the yard. She and
Louise were as sisters. At her grave the giant often sat, for she was a
timid little creature, afraid to be alone; and sometimes at night when
the wind was hard, when a cutting sleet was driving, he would get out of
his bed and stand under the tree to be near her. It was so foolishly
sentimental of so strong a man that he would not have dared to tell
anyone, but to the child in the grave he told his troubles. So, on this
morning, when the wind was gathering its forces as it swept the fields,
as the clouds were thickening far away among the whitish tops of the
dead cypress trees, he went straightway to the weeping-willow, passed
the grave of his father, his mother, and sat down beside the stone that
bore the name and the age of the little one.

CHAPTER XI.

When Mrs. Cranceford returned home early in the afternoon, she told the
Major, whom she found pacing up and down the long porch, that Pennington
was up and walking about the house. She told him, also, that he was
resolved upon taking Louise to Alabama, and added that she herself would
oppose this determination up to the very moment of