me,
sonny; so I think I'll try to fill the gap and make you happy. Do you
mind, Nan, if I try my hand at foster-fathering? I like children. This
little man starts life under a handicap, but I'll see to it that he
gets his chance in life--far from Port Agnew, if you desire." She
closed her eyes in sudden pain and did not answer. "And whatever your
opinion on the matter may be, Nan," he went on, "even had I known
yesterday of your sorrow, I should have called to-day just the same."

"You call it my 'sorrow!'" she burst forth passionately. "Others call
it my trouble--my sin--my disgrace."

"And what does Caleb call it, Nan?"

"He doesn't call it, Donald. It hasn't appeared to make any difference
with him. I'm still--his little girl."

"Well, I cannot regard you as anything but a little girl--the same
little girl that used to help Caleb and me sail the sloop. I don't
wish to know anything about your sorrow, or your trouble, or your
disgrace, or your sin, or whatever folks may choose to call it. I just
want you to know that I know that you're a good woman, and when the
spirit moves me--which will be frequently, now that I have this young
man to look after--I shall converse with you at your front gate and
visit you and your decent old father in this little house, and be
damned to those that decry it. I am the young laird of Tyee. My father
raised me to be a gentleman, and, by the gods, I'll be one! Now, Nan,
take the boy and go in the house, because I see a rascally negro in
the doorway of that shack yonder, and I have a matter to discuss with
him. Is that white woman his consort?"

Nan nodded again. She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart
was full to overflowing.

"Come here--you!" Donald called to the negro. The fellow slouched
forth defiantly. He was a giant mulatto, and his freckled face wore an
evil and contemptuous grin.

"I'm Donald McKaye," Donald informed him. "I'm the new laird of Tyee.
I want you and that woman to pack up and leave."

"How soon, boss?"

"Immediately." Anticipating a refusal, Donald stepped closer to the
mulatto and looked him sternly in the eye.

"We-ll, is dat so?" the yellow rascal drawled. "So youh-all's de new
la'rd, eh? Well, ah'm de king o' de Sawdust Pile, an' mah house is mah
castle. Git dat, Mistah La'rd?"

Donald turned toward Nan.

"I'm going to have trouble here, Nan. Please go in the house."

"Proceed," she replied simply. "I have a most unwomanly and unla