"That wasn't _all_ you come to say," she said, almost tremulously.

"No, it wasn't, Ann; I admit it wasn't _all_-not quite all."

There was another silence. Ann fastened the end of the rope to a strong nail driven in the wood-work about the well with firm, steady fingers, then she sighed deeply.

"You see, Ann," Mrs. Waycroft gathered courage to say, "your husband and Nettie live about half a mile or three-quarters from brother's, and I didn't know but what you-I didn't know but what I might accidentally run across them."

Ann's face was hard as stone. Her eyes, resting on the far-off blue mountains and foot-hills, flashed like spiritual fires. It was at such moments that the weaker woman feared her, and Mrs. Waycroft's glance was almost apologetic. However, Ann spoke first.

"You may as well tell me, Mary Waycroft," she faltered, "exactly what you had in mind. I know you are a friend. You are a friend if there ever was one to a friendless woman. What was you thinking about? Don't be afraid to tell me. You could not hurt my feelings to save your life."

"Well, then, I will be plain, Ann," returned the widow. "I have queer thoughts about you sometimes, and last night I laid awake longer than usual and got to thinking about the vast and good blessings I have had in my children, and from that I got to thinking about you and the only baby you ever had."

"Huh! you needn't bother about _that_," said Ann, her lips quivering. "I reckon I don't need sympathy in that direction."

"But I _did_ bother; I couldn't help it, Ann; for, you see, it seems to me that a misunderstanding is up between you and Nettie, anyway. She's a grown girl now, and I reckon she can hardly remember you; but I have heard, Ann, that she's never had the things a girl of her age naturally craves. She's got her beaus over there, too, so folks tell me, and wants to appear well; but Joe Boyd never was able to give her anything she needs. You see, Ann, I just sorter put myself in your place, as I laid there thinking, and it struck me that if I had as much substance as you have, and was as free to give to the needy as you are, that, even if the law _had_ turned my child over to another to provide for, that I'd love powerful to do more for it than he was able, showing to the girl, and everybody else, that the court didn't know what it was about. And, Ann, in that way I'd feel that I was doing my duty in spite of laws or narrow public opinion."

Ann Boyd's features were working, a soft flush had come into her tanned cheeks, her hard mouth had become more flexible.

"I've thought of that ten thousand times," she said, huskily, "but I have never seen the time I could quite come down to it. Mary, it's a sort of pride that I never can overcome. I feel peculiar about Net-about the girl, anyway. It seems to me like she died away back there in her baby-clothes, with her playthings-her big rag-doll and tin kitchen-and that I almost hate the strange, grown-up person she's become away off from me. As G.o.d is my Judge, Mary Waycroft, I believe I could meet her face to face and not feel-feel like she was any near kin of mine, I can't see no reason in this way of feeling. I know she had nothing to do with what took place, but she represents Joe Boyd's part of the thing, and she's lost her place in my heart. If she could have grown up here with me it would have been different, but-" Ann went no further. She stood looking over the landscape, her hand clutching her strong chin.

There was an awkward silence. Some of Ann's chickens came up to her very skirt, chirping and springing open-mouthed to her kindly hand for food.

She gently and absent-mindedly waved her ap.r.o.n up and down and drove them away.

"I understand all that," said Mrs. Waycroft; "but I believe you feel that way just because you've got in the habit of it. I really believe you ought to let me"-the speaker caught her breath-"ought to just let me tell Nettie, when I see her, about what I know you to be at heart, away down under what the outside world thinks. And you ought to let me say that if her young heart yearns for anything her pa can't afford to buy, that I know you'd be glad, out of your bounty, to give it to her. I really believe it would open the girl's eyes and heart to you. I believe she'd not only accept your aid, but she'd be plumb happy over it, as any other girl in the same fix would be."

"Do you think that, Mary? Do you think she'd take anything-a single thing from my hands?"

"I do, Ann, as the Lord is my Creator, I do; any natural girl would be only too glad. Young women hungering for nice things to put on along with other girls ain't as particular as some hide-bound old people. Then I'll bet she didn't know what it was all about, anyway."

There was a flush in Ann's strong neck and face to the very roots of her hair. She leaned against the windla.s.s and folded her bare arms. "Between me and you, as intimate friends, Mary Waycroft, I'd rather actually load that girl down with things to have and wear than to have anything on the face of this earth. I'd get on the train myself and go clean to Atlanta and lay myself out. What she had to wear would be the talk of the country for miles around. I'd do it to give the lie to the court that said she'd be in better hands than in mine when she went away with Joe Boyd. Oh, I'd do it fast enough, but there's no way. She wouldn't propose it, nor I wouldn't for my life. I wouldn't run the risk of being refused; that would actually humble me to the dust. No, I couldn't risk that."

"I believe, Ann, that I could do it for you in such a way that--"

"No, n.o.body could do it; it isn't to be done!"

"I started to say, Ann, that I believed I could kind o' hint around and find out how the land lies without using your name at all."

Ann Boyd held her breath; her face became fixed in suspense. She leaned forward, her great eyes staring eagerly at her neighbor.

"Do you think you could do that?" she asked, finally, after a lengthy pause. "Do you think you could do it without letting either of them know I was-was willing?"

"Yes, I believe I could, and you may let it rest right here. You needn't either consent or refuse, Ann, but I'll be back here about twelve o'clock Thursday, and I'll tell you what takes place."

"I'll leave the whole thing in your hands," said Ann, and she moved towards the rear door of her house. "Now"-and her tone was more joyful than it had been for years-"come in and sit down."

"No, I can't; I must hurry on back home," said the visitor. "I must get ready to go; Pete wants to make an early start."

"You know you'll have plenty of time all this evening to stuff things in that carpet-bag of yours." Ann laughed, and her friend remarked that it was the first smile and joke she had heard from Ann Boyd since their girlhood together.

"Well, I will go in, then," said Mrs. Waycroft. "I love to see you the way you are now, Ann. It does my heart good."

But the mood was gone. Ann was serious again. They sat in the sitting-room chatting till the people who had been to meeting began to return homeward along the dusty road. Among them, in Sam Hemingway's spring wagon, with its wabbling wheels and ragged oil-cloth top, were Jane and her daughter Virginia, neither of whom looked towards the cottage as they pa.s.sed.

"I see Virginia's got a new hat," commented Mrs. Waycroft. "Her mother raked and sc.r.a.ped to get it; her credit's none too good. I hear she's in debt up to her eyes. Every stick of timber and animal down to her litter of pigs-even the farm tools-is under mortgage to money-lenders that won't stand no foolishness when pay-day comes. I saw two of 'em, myself, looking over her crop the other day and shaking their heads at the sight of the puny corn and cotton this dry spell. But she'd have the hat for Virginia if it took the roof from over her head. Her very soul's bound up in that girl. Looks like she thinks Virginia's better clay than common folks. They say she won't let her go with the Halcomb girls because their aunt had that talk about her."

"She's no better nor no worse, I reckon," said Ann, "than the general run of girls."

"There goes Langdon Chester on his prancing horse," said Mrs. Waycroft.

"Oh, my! that _was_ a bow! He took off his hat to Virginia and bent clean down to his horse's mane. If she'd been a queen he couldn't have been more gallant. For all the world, like his father used to be to high and low. I'll bet that tickled Jane. I can see her rear herself back, even from here. I wonder if she's fool enough to think, rascal as he is, that Langdon Chester would want to marry a girl like Virginia just for her good looks."

"No, he'll never marry her," Ann said, positively, and her face was hard, her eyes set in a queer stare at her neighbor. "He isn't the marrying sort. If he ever marries, he'll do it to feather his nest."

The visitor rose to go, and Ann walked with her out to the gate. Mrs.

Waycroft was wondering if she would, of her own accord, bring up the subject of their recent talk, but she did not. With her hand on the gate, she said, however, in a non-committal tone:

"When did you say you'd be back?"

"Thursday, at twelve o'clock, or thereabouts," was the ready reply.

"Well, take good care of yourself," said Ann. "That will be a long, hot ride over a rough road there and back."

Going into her kitchen, Ann, with her roughly shod foot, kicked some live embers on the hearth under the pot and kettle containing her dinner, bending to examine the boiling string-beans and hunch of salt pork.

"I don't feel a bit like eating," she mused, "but I reckon my appet.i.te will come after I calm down. Let's see now. I've got two whole days to wait before she gets back, and then the Lord above only knows what the news will be. Seems to me sorter like I'm on trial again. Nettie was too young to appear for or against me before, but now she's on the stand.

Yes, she's the judge, jury, and all the rest put together. I almost wish I hadn't let Mary Waycroft see I was willing. It may make me look like a weak, begging fool, and that's something I've avoided all these years.

But the game is worth the risk, humiliating as it may turn out. To be able to do something for my own flesh and blood would give me the first joy I've had in many a year. Lord, Lord, maybe she will consent, and then I'll get some good out of all the means I've been piling up. Homely as they say she is, I'd like to fairly load her down till her finery would be the talk of the county, and shiftless Joe Boyd 'ud blush to see her rustle out in public. Maybe-I say _maybe_-n.o.body really knows what a woman will do-but maybe she'll just up and declare to him that she's coming back to me, where other things will match her outfit. Come back!

how odd!-come back here where she used to toddle about and play with her tricks and toys, on the floor and in the yard. That would be a glorious vindication, and then-I don't know, but maybe I'd learn to love her. I'm sure I'd feel grateful for it-even-even if it was my money and nothing else that brought her to me."

X

To Ann Boyd the period between Mrs. Waycroft's departure and return was long and fraught with conflicting emotions. Strange, half-defined new hopes fluttered into existence like young birds in air that was too chill, and this state of mind was succeeded by qualms of doubt and fear not unlike the misgivings which had preceded the child's birth; for it had been during that time of detachment from her little world that Ann's life secret had a.s.sumed its gravest and most threatening aspect. And if she had not loved the child quite as much after it came as might have seemed natural, she sometimes ascribed the shortcoming to that morbid period which had been filled with lurking shadows and constantly whispered threats rather than the a.s.surances of a blessed maternity.

Yes, the lone woman reflected, her kind neighbor had taken a reasonable view of the situation. And she tried valiantly to hold this pacifying thought over herself as she sat at her rattling and pounding loom, or in her walks of daily inspection over her fields and to her storage-houses, where her negro hands were at work. Yes, Nettie would naturally crave the benefits she could confer, and, to still darker promptings, Ann told herself, time after time, that, being plain-looking, the girl would all the more readily reach out for embellishments which would ameliorate that defect. Yes, it was not unlikely that she would want the things offered too much to heed the malicious and jealous advice of a shiftless father who thought only of his own pride and comfort. And while Ann was on this rack of disquietude over the outcome of Mrs. Waycroft's visit, there was in her heart a new and almost unusual absence of active hatred for the neighbors who had offended her. Old Abe Longley came by the second day after Mrs. Waycroft's departure. He was filled with the augmented venom of their last contact. His eyes flashed and the yellow tobacco-juice escaped from his mouth and trickled down his quivering chin as he informed her that he had secured from a good, law-abiding Christian woman the use of all the pasture-land he needed, and that she could keep hers for the devils' imps to play pranks on at night to her order. For just one instant her blood boiled, and then the thought of Mrs. Waycroft and her grave and spiritual mission cooled her from head to foot. She stared at the old man blankly for an instant, and then, without a word, turned into her house, leaving him astounded and considerably taken aback. That same day from her doorway she saw old Mrs. Bruce, Luke King's mother, slowly shambling along the road, and she went out and leaned on her gate till Mrs. Bruce was near, then she said, "Mrs. Bruce, I've got something to tell you."

The pedestrian paused and then turned in her course and came closer.

"You've heard from my boy?" she said, eagerly.

"No, not since I saw you that day," said Ann. "But he's all right, Mrs.

Bruce, as I told you, and prospering. I didn't come out to speak of him.

I've decided to drop that law-suit against Gus Willard. He can keep his pond where it is and run his mill on."

"Oh, you don't mean it, surely you don't mean it, Ann!" the old woman cried. "Why, Gus was just back from Darley last night and said your lawyers said thar was to be no hitch in the proceedings; but, of course, if _you_ say so, why-"