name. What kin does that make us?"

"Hush, brother," said Miss Lucy, for she saw the boy reddening with
embarrassment and she went across and shook hands with him, taking in with a
glance his coarse strange clothes and his soiled hands and face and his
tangled hair, but pleased at once with his shyness and his dark eyes. She was
really never surprised at any caprice of her brother, and she did not show
much interest when the Major went on to tell where he had found the lad--for
she would have thought it quite possible that he might have taken the boy out
of a circus. As for Chad, he was in awe of her at once --which the Major
noticed with an inward chuckle, for the boy had shown no awe of him. Chad
could hardly eat for shyness at supper and because everything was so strange
and beautiful, and he scarcely opened his lips when they sat around the great
fire, until Miss Lucy was gone to bed. Then he told the Major all about
himself and old Nathan and the Turners and the school-master, and how he
hoped to come back to the Bluegrass, and go to that big college himself, and
he amazed the Major when, glancing at the books, he spelled out the titles of
two of Scott's novels, "The Talisman" and "Ivanhoe," and told how the
school-master had read them to him. And the Major, who had a passion for Sir
Walter, tested Chad's knowledge, and he could mention hardly a character or a
scene in the two books that did not draw an excited response from the boy.

"Wouldn't you like to stay here in the Bluegrass now and go to school?"

Chad's eyes lighted up.

"I reckon I would; but how am I goin' to school, now, I'd like to know? I
ain't got no money to buy books, and the school-teacher said you have to pay
to go to school, up here."