"Yes. I know it wa'n't just accordin' to the letter o' the law, and the old
Judge was always pootty p'tic'lah. But I've took care of the place goin'
on twenty years now, and I hain't never had a chick nor a child in it
before. The child," he continued, partly turning his face round again, and
beginning to look Miss Kilburn in the eye, "wa'n't one to touch anything,
anyway, and we kep' her in our part all the while; Mis' Bolton she couldn't
seem to let her out of her sight, she got so fond of her, and she used to
follow me round among the hosses like a kitten. I declare, I _miss_
her."

Bolton's face, the colour of one of the lean ploughed fields of Hatboro',
and deeply furrowed, lighted up with real feeling, which he tried to make
go as far in the work of reconciling Miss Kilburn as if it had been
factitious.

"But I don't understand," she said. "What child are you talking about?"

"Mr. Peck's."

"Was he married?" she asked, with displeasure, she did not know why.

"Well, yes, he _had_ been," answered Bolton. "But she'd be'n in the
asylum ever since the child was born."

"Oh," said Miss Kilburn, with relief; and she fell back upon the seat from
which she had started forward.

Bolton might easily have taken her tone for that of disgust. He faced round
upon her once more. "It was kind of queer, his havin' the child with him,