e merest movement, an unstudied gesture of
despair. Tenney was sitting by the kitchen stove, and Nan went to him
with outstretched hand.

"I thought I should find you if I came early enough," she said. "How's
your foot?"

She had a direct address country folk liked. She was never "stand-off,"
"stuck-up." It was as easy talking with her as with John Raven.

"Some better, I guess," said Tenney. He eyed her curiously. Had Raven
sent her, for some hidden reason, to spy out the land?

"You get round, don't you?" pursued Nan.

She took the chair Tira brought her and regarded him across the shining
stove. Tira withdrew to a distance, and stood immovable by the scullery
door, as if, Nan thought, she meant to keep open her line of retreat.

"No," said Tenney grimly, "I don't git about much. Three times a day I
git from the house to the barn. I expect to do better, as time goes on.
I've got my eye on a cord wood stick, an' I'm plannin' how I can whittle
me out a crutch."

Nan, glancing at Tira, caught the tremor that went over her and
understood this was, in a veiled way, a threat. She came, at a leap, to
the purpose of her call.

"Mr. Tenney," she said, "I'm an awfully interfering person. I've come to
ask you and your wife to let me do something."

Tenney was staring at her with lacklustre eyes. In these latter days,
the old mad spark in them had gone.

"Your baby," said Nan, feeling her heart beat hard, "isn't right. I know
places where such poor little children are made--right--if they can be.
They're studied and looked after. I want you to let me take him away
with me and see if something can be done. His mother could go, too, if
she likes. You could go. Only, I'll be responsible. I'll arrange it
all."

Tenney still stared at her, and she found the dull gaze disconcerting.

"So," he said at length, not even glancing at Tira, "so she's put that
into your head."

"So far as that goes," said Nan boldly, "I've put it into hers. I saw he
wasn't right. I told her I'd do everything in my power, in anybody's
power, to have him"--she hesitated here for a homely word he might take
in--"seen to. And now (you're his father) I've come to you."

Tenney sat a long time, motionless, his eyes on the window at the end of
the room where a woodbine spray was tapping, and again Nan became
conscious of the increased tremor in Tira's frame. For now it seemed to
have run over her and strangely to keep time to the woodbine spray
out