jacket. "Shake hands with your grandfather, George. That's right--don't
talk too much," she added, with a half-nervous little laugh, as the old
man, with a kind of fixed smile, and the child shook hands in silence.

Presently she saw Black Andy behind the stove. "Well, Andy, have you
been here ever since?" she asked, and, as he came forward, she suddenly
caught him by both arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. "Last time I
saw you, you were behind the stove at Lumley's. Nothing's ever too warm
for you," she added. "You'd be shivering on the Equator. You were
always hugging the stove at Lumley's."

"Things was pretty warm there, too, Cassy," he said, with a sidelong look
at his father.

She saw the look, her face flashed with sudden temper, then her eyes fell
on her boy, now lost in the arms of Aunt Kate, and she curbed herself.

"There were plenty of things doing at Lumley's in those days," she said
brusquely. "We were all young and fresh then," she added, and then
something seemed to catch her voice, and she coughed a little--a hard,
dry, feverish cough. "Are the Lumleys all right? Are they still there,
at the Forks?" she asked, after the little paroxysm of coughing.

"Cleaned out--all scattered. We own the Lumleys' place now," replied
Black Andy, with another sidelong glance at his father, who, as he put
some more wood on the fire and opened the damper of the stove wider,
grimly watched and listened.

"Jim, and Lance, and Jerry, and Abner?" she asked almost abstractedly.