to bed." She gave the boy's head a firm pat. "There's a turnover in
the pantry, under a bowl on the lowermost shelf," said she; and she
laughed in his passionate, flushed face when he raised it.

"I don't care, I will!" he cried.

"Go and get your turnover; I saved it for you," said she, with a
push.

Neither of them dreamed that Lot Gordon had been watching them,
standing in a snow-drift under the south window, his eyes peering
over the sill, his forehead wet with a snow-wreath, stifling back his
cough. When at last the candlelight went out in the great kitchen he
crept stiffly and wearily through the snow.




Chapter II


Lot Gordon lived about half a mile away in the old Gordon homestead
alone, except for an old servant-woman and her husband, who managed
his house for him and took care of the farm. Lot himself did not work
in the common acceptance of the term. His father had left him quite a
property, and he did not need to toil for his bread. People called
him lazy. He owned nearly as many books as the parson and the lawyer.
He often read all night it was said, and he roamed the woods in all
seasons. Under low-hanging winter boughs and summer arches did Lot
Gordon pry and slink and lie in wait, his fine, sharp face peering