such a effort, so it seemed, for the boy's sake.

She must live for the boy; she must work for the boy; she must try to
throw some safeguards around his future. What _could_ she do to help
him? That wus the question that was a hantin' her soul.

It wus jest like death for her to face the curius gaze of the world again;
for, like a wounded animal, she had wanted to crawl away, and hide her
cruel woe and disgrace in some sheltered spot, away from the sharp-sot
eyes of the babblin' world.

But she endured it. She came out of her quiet home, where her heart had
bled in secret; she came out into society again; and she did every thing
she could, in her gentle, quiet way. She joined temperance societies,--
helped push 'em forward with her money and her influence. With other
white-souled wimmen, gentle and refined as she was, she went into rough
bar-rooms, and knelt on their floors, and prayed what her sad heart wus
full of,--for pity and mercy for her boy, and other mothers' boys,--prayed
with that fellowship of suffering that made her sweet voice as pathetic as
tears, and patheticker, so I have been told.

But one thing hurt her influence dretfully, and almost broke her own
heart. Paul had left a very large property, but it wus all in the hands of
an executor until the boy wus of age. He wus to give Cicely a liberal, a
very liberal, sum every year, but wus to manage the property jest as he
thought best.

He wus a good business man, and one that meant to do middlin' near right,
but wus close for a bargain, and sot, awful sot. And though he wus dretful
polite, and made a stiddy practice right along of callin' wimmen "angels,"