ther all of her fortune and her house, because
she knew that his father would be cutting him off, and also that me
uncle had set aside for me what would be me father's interest in his
father's estate.

"Whatever the sum is that me grandmother left me father, because she
loved him and wanted him to be having it, that I'll be taking. 'Twas
hers from her father, and she had the right to be giving it as she
chose. Anything from the man that knowingly left me father and me mother
to go cold and hungry, and into the fire in misery, when just a little
would have made life so beautiful to them, and saved me this crippled
body--money that he willed from me when he knew I was living, of his
blood and on charity among strangers, I don't touch, not if I freeze,
starve, and burn too! If there ain't enough besides that, and I can't be
earning enough to fix things for the Angel----"

"We are not discussing money!" burst in the Man of Affairs. "We don't
want any blood-money! We have all we need without it. If you don't feel
right and easy over it, don't you touch a cent of any of it."

"It's right I should have what me grandmother intinded for me father,
and I want it," said Freckles, "but I'd die before I'd touch a cent of
me grandfather's money!"

"Now," said the Angel, "we are all going home. We have done all we can
for Freckles. His people are here. He should know them. They are very
anxious to become acquainted with him. We'll resign him to them. When he
is well, why, then he will be perfectly free to go to Ireland or come to
the Limberlost, just as he chooses. We will go at once."

McLean held out for a week, and then he could endure it no longer.
He was heart hungry for Freckles. Communing with himself in the long,
soundful nights of the swamp, he had learned to his astonishment that
for the past year his heart had been circling the Limberlost with
Freckles. He began to wish that he had not left him. Perhaps the
boy--his boy by first right, after all--was being neglected. If the
Boss had been a nervous old woman, he scarcely could have imagined more
things that might be going wrong.

He started for Chicago, loaded with a big box of goldenrod, asters,
fringed gentians, and crimson leaves, that the Angel carefully had
gathered from Freckles' room, and a little, long slender package. He
traveled with biting, stinging jealousy in his heart. He would not
admit it even to himself, but he was unable to remain longer away from