usiness."

The Bishop smiled: "It does look like he loves her," he added, dryly.
"If I was the devil an' wanted to ketch a woman I'd write a poem to
her every day an' lie between heats. Love lives on lies."

"Now, I've ca'culated them things out," said Uncle Davy, "an' it'll
be this away: Tilly is as pretty as a peach an' Charlie is gittin'
stuck wus'n wus'n every day. By the time I am dead they will be
married good an' hard. I am almost gone as it is, the ole man he's
liable to drap off any time--yea, Lord, thy servant is ready to
go--but I do hope that the good master will let me live long enough
to hold one of my Biggers grandboys on my knees."

"All I've got to say," said the Bishop, "is jus' to watch yo'
son-in-law. Every son-in-law will stan' watchin' after the ceremony,
but yours will stan' it all the time."

"_'Lastly,'_" read the Bishop, "_'I wills it that things be left just
as they be on the place--no moving around of nothing, especially the
well, it being eighty foot deep, and with good cool water; and
finally I leave anything else I've got, mostly my good will, to the
tender mercies of the lawyers and courts.'_"

The Bishop witnessed it, gave Uncle Davy another toddy, and, after
again cautioning him to watch young Biggers closely, rode away.

CHAPTER XV

EDWARD CONWAY

Across the hill the old man rode to Millwood, and as he rode his head
was bent forward in troubled thought.

He had heard that Edward Conway had come to the sorest need--even to
where he would place his daughters in the mill. None knew better than
Hillard Watts what this would mean socially for the granddaughters of
Governor Conway.

Besides, the old preacher had begun to hate the mill and its infamous
system of child labor with a hatred born of righteousness. Every
month he saw its degradation, its slavery, its death.

He preached, he talked against it. He began to be pointed out as the
man who was against the mill. Ominous rumors had come to his ears,
and threats. It was whispered to him that he had better be silent,
and some of the people he preached to--some of those who had children
in the mill and were supported in their laziness by the life blood of
their little ones--these were his bitterest enemies.

To-day, the drunken proprietor of Millwood sat in his accustomed
place on the front balcony, his cob-pipe in his mouth and ruin all
around him.

Like others, he had a great respect for the Bishop--a man who had