own mental processes, what angry jealousy
the look on his face would have roused in her only so short a time
ago--jealousy for the sake of her own children, that any loss, any
grief, should be poignant and pierce his heart save for them. Now she
was sorry for him; she felt with him.

But as he continued silent, and only stared at her dumfounded and
piteous, she grew frightened--she knew not of what.

"Shucks, Ty!" she exclaimed, catching him by the sleeve with the
impluse to rouse him, to awaken him, as it were, to his own old familiar
identity; "ye ain't 'feared o' that thar snaggle-toothed skeer-crow in
yander; he would be plumb comical ef he didn't look so mean-natured an'
sech a hyper-crite."

He gazed at her, his eyes eloquent with pain.

"Laurely!" he gasped, "this hyar thing plumb knocks me down; it jes
takes the breath o' life out'n me!"

She hesitated for a moment. Any anxiety, any trouble, seemed so
incongruous with the sweet spring-tide peace in the air, that one did
not readily take it home to heart. Hope was in the atmosphere like an
essential element; one might call it oxygen or caloric or vitality,
according to the tendency of mind and the habit of speech. But the heart
knew it, and the pulses beat strongly responsive to it. Faith ruled the
world. Some tiny bulbous thing at her feet that had impeded her step
caught her attention. It was coming up from the black earth, and the
buried darkness, and the chill winter's torpor, with all the impulses
of confidence in the light without, and the warmth of the sun, and the
fresh showers that were aggregating in the clouds somewhere for its
nurture--a blind inanimate thing like that! But Tyler Sudley felt none
of it; the blow had fallen upon him, stunning him. He stood silent,
looking gropingly into the purple dusk, veined with silver glintings
of the moon, as if he sought to view in the future some event which he
dreaded, and yet shrank to see.

She had rarely played the consoler, so heavily had she and all her
griefs leaned on his supporting arm. It was powerless now. She perceived
this, all dismayed at the responsibility that had fallen upon her. She
made an effort to rally his courage. She had more faith in it than in
her own.

"'Feard o' _him!_" she exclaimed, with a sharp tonic note of satire.
"Kem in an' view him."

"Laurely," he quavered, "I oughter hev got it down in writin' from him;
I oughter made him sign papers agreein' fur me ter keep the bo