"He's awful cunning and bright, but Allan is the handsomest. Never in my
born days did I see so beautiful a boy."

"But he's like the father, line for line." There was a sudden savage
roughness in the voice, a sterner set to the shaven upper lip and
straight mouth, though he still spoke low. "Like the huckstering, godless
fiddle-player that took her away from me. What a mercy of God's he'll
never see her again--she with the saved and he--what a reckoning for him
when he goes!"

"But he was not bad to let you take them."

"He boasted to me that he'd not have done it, except that she begged him
with her last breath to promise it. He said the words with great maudlin
tears raining down his face, when my own eyes were dry!"

"How good if you can leave them both in the church, preaching the word
where you preached it so many years!"

"I misdoubt the father's blood in them--at least, in the older. But it's
late. Good night, Clytie--a good Christmas to you."

"More to you, Mr. Delcher! Good night!"




CHAPTER II