d face, slipped
quietly out of the room into the yard, while Harry stood in the
doorway, troubled and silent.

"Don't let me hear you speak that way again Mammy," said Mrs. Dean, so
sternly that the old woman swept out of the room in high dudgeon And
yet she told her husband of Mammy's charge;

"I am rather surprised at Major Buford."

"Perhaps he doesn't know," said the General. "Perhaps it isn't true."

"Nobody knows anything about the boy."

"Well, I cannot have my children associating with a waif."

"He seems like a nice boy."

"He uses extraordinary language. I cannot have him teaching my children
mischief. Why I believe Margaret is really fond of him. I know Harry
and Dan are." The General looked thoughtful.

"I will speak to Major Buford about him," he said, and he did--no
little to that gentleman's confusion--though he defended Chad
staunchly--and the two friends parted with some heat.

Thereafter, the world changed for Chad, for is there any older and
truer story than that Evil has wings, while Good goes a plodding way?
Chad felt the change, in the negroes, in the sneering overseer, and
could not understand. The rumor reached Miss Lucy's ears and she and
the Major had a spirited discussion that rather staggered Chad's
kind-hearted companion. It reached the school, and a black-haired
youngster, named Georgie Forbes, who had long been one of Margaret's
abject slaves, and who hated Chad, brought out the terrible charge in
the presence of a dozen school-children at noon-recess one day. It had
been no insult in the mountains, but Chad, dazed though he was, knew it
was meant for an insult, and his hard fist shot out promptly, landing
in his enemy's chin and bringing him bawling to the earth. Others gave
out the cry then, and the boy fought right and left like a demon. Dan
stood sullenly near, taking no part, and Harry, while he stopped the
unequal fight, turned away from Chad coldly, calling Margaret, who had
run up toward them, away at the same time, and Chad's three friends
turned from him then and there, while the boy, forgetting all else,
stood watching them with dumb wonder and pain. The school-bell clanged,
but Chad stood still--with his heart well nigh breaking. In a few
minutes the last pupil had disappeared through the school-room door,
and Chad stood under a great elm--alone. But only a moment, for he
turned quickly away, the tears starting to his eyes, walked rapidly
through the woods, climbed t