between the Marrow kirk and the other kirks. But I am sure he
could never be unkind or hurtful to any one in the world. But why
do you ask, Mistress Winsome?"

"Because--because--" she paused, looking down now, the underwells
of her sweet eyes brimming to the overflow--"because something
grandfather said once, when he was very ill, made me wonder if
your father had ever been unkind to my mother."

Two great tears overflowed from under the dark lashes and ran down
Winsome's cheek. Ralph was on the right side of the branch now,
and, strangely enough, Winsome did not seem to notice it. He had a
lace-edged handkerchief in his hand which had been his mother's,
and all that was loving and chivalrous in his soul was stirred at
the sight of a woman's tears. He had never seen them before, and
there is nothing so thrilling in the world to a young man. Gently,
with a light, firm hand, he touched Winsome's cheek, instinctively
murmuring tenderness which no one had ever used to him since that
day long ago, when his mother had hung, with the love of a woman
who knows that she must give up all, over the cot of a boy whose
future she could not foresee.

For a thrilling moment Winsome's golden coronet of curls touched
his breast, and, as he told himself after long years, rested
willingly there while his heart beat at least ten times.
Unfortunately, it did not take long to beat ten times.

One moment more, and without any doubt Ralph would have taken
Winsome in his arms. But the girl, with that inevitable instinct
which tells a woman when her waist or her lips are in danger--