The old man went through his accustomed facial pantomime, slapped himself
on the thigh, and blurted out:

"In town wid de Unions. He is Kyurnel Robert Marsden now."

"Who told you, Uncle Squire?" Her eyes were filled with sudden gathered
tears, and her scarlet lips trembled.

"Jim, dat is Kyurnel Tadlock's man, telled me. He seed him en know'd him.
But he is mity sick, honey, mity sick."

"O, Uncle Squire," cried the delighted child, "won't mamma go right
straight in town and take me?"

"Well, now, dat's er gray hoss ob ernuther color. Mebbe she mout, en mebbe
she mouten."

The child's countenance fell, her sensitive nature touched. Already a
womanly intuition, wonderful in one so childlike and ignorant of the
world's ways, begun to stir faintly.

"If mamma can't leave Aunt Betsy, don't you reckon she will let me go with
you in town to see him, Uncle Squire?"

"You en your mar fur dat, honey. But Squire's your man."

That night after Aunt Betsy had been given her medicine and tucked away,
the child climbed to her mamma's lap and coddled down to her.
Instinctively she wanted the magnetism of touch to help her. And then,
with her warm breath playing about her mamma's cheek, and her little hand