es and sweet-and
black-gums were like those the pioneers looked on when the land was
young.

Thomas Jefferson had the appreciative eye and heart of one born with a
deep and abiding love of the beautiful in nature, and for a time the
sunset ravishment possessed him utterly. But the blurring of the
fine-lined traceries and the fading of the silver and the gray into
twilight purple broke the spell. The postponed resolve was the thing
present and pressing. His mother was as nearly recovered as she was ever
likely to be, and his uncle would be returning to South Tredegar in the
morning. The evil tale must be told while there was yet one to whom his
mother could turn for help and sympathy in her hour of bitter
disappointment.

He was rising from his seat on the church step when he heard sounds like
muffled groans. Recovering quickly from the first boyish startle of fear
oozing like a cool breeze blowing up the back of his neck, he saw that
the church door was ajar. By cautiously adding another inch to the
aperture he could see the interior of the building, its outlines taking
shape when his eyes had become accustomed to darkness relieved only by
the small fan-light over the door. Some one was in the church: a man,
kneeling, with clasped hands uplifted, in the open space fronting the
rude pulpit. Tom recognized the voice and withdrew quickly. It was his
Uncle Silas, praying fervently for a lost sheep of the house of Israel.

In former times, with grim rebellion gripping him as it gripped him now,
Tom would have run away. But there was a prompting stronger than
rebellion: a sudden melting of the heart that made him remember the
loving-kindnesses, and not any of the austerities, of the man who was
praying for him, and he sat down on the lowest step to wait.

The twilight was glooming to dusk when Silas Crafts came out of the
church and locked the door behind him. If he were surprised to find Tom
waiting for him, he made no sign. Neither was there any word of
greeting passed between them when he gathered his coat tails and sat
down on the higher step, self-restraint being a heritage which had come
down undiminished from the Covenanter ancestors of both. A little
grayer, a little thinner, but with the deep-set eyes still glowing with
the fires of utter convincement and the marvelous voice still
unimpaired, Silas Crafts would have refused to believe that the passing
years had changed him; yet now there was kinsman love to tempe