story that he told only to old Joel, under promise that he would never make it
known to Melissa. Then he started for the Bluegrass, going over Pine Mountain
and down through Cumberland Gap. He would come back every year of his life, he
told Melissa and the Turners, but Chad knew he was bidding a last farewell to
the life he had known in the mountains. At Melissa's wish and old Joel's, he
left Jack behind, though he sorely wanted to take the dog with him. It was
little enough for him to do in return for their kindness, and he could see
that Melissa's affection for Jack was even greater than his own: and how
incomparably lonelier than his life was the life that she must lead! This time
Melissa did not rush to the yard gate when he was gone. She sank slowly where
she stood to the steps of the porch, and there she sat stone-still. Old Joel
passed her on the way to the barn. Several times the old mother walked to the
door behind her, and each time starting to speak, stopped and turned back, but
the girl neither saw nor heard them. Jack trotted by, whimpering. He sat down
in front of her, looking up at her unseeing eyes, and it was only when he
crept to her and put his head in her lap, that she put her arms around him and
bent her own head down; but no tears came.



CHAPTER 17. CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

And so, returned to the Bluegrass, the midsummer of that year, Chadwick Buford
gentleman. A youth of eighteen, with the self-possession of a man, and a pair
of level, clear eyes, that looked the world in the face as proudly as ever but
with no defiance and no secret sense of shame It was a curious story that Chad
brought back and told to the Major, on the porch under the honeysuckle vines,
but it seemed to surprise the Major very little: how old Nathan had sent for
him to come to his death-bed and had told Chad that he was no foundling; that
one of his farms belonged to the boy; that he had lied to the Major about