r too white."

She looked off toward the mountain top and slowly drew her hand from
his. "I must do it. There is no one else," she said in a low voice.

"But it can't go on always--this way."

"I reckon so. Once I thought--it might--be some different, but now--"
She waited an instant in silence.

"But now--what?"

"It seems as if it must go on--like this way--always, as if I were
chained here with iron."

"But why? Won't you tell me so I may help you?"

"I can't," she said sadly and with finality. "It must be."

He brooded a moment, clasping his hands about one knee and gazing at
her. "Maybe," he said at last, "maybe I can help you, even if you can't
tell me what is holding you."

She smiled a faintly fleeting smile. "Thank you--but I reckon not."

"Miss Cassandra, when you know I am at your service, and will do
anything you ask of me, why do you hold something back from me? I can
understand, and I may have ways--"

"It's just that, suh. Even if I could tell you, I don't guess you could
understand. Even if I went yonder on the mountain and cried to heaven to
set me free, I'd have to bide here and do the work that is mine to do,
as mother has done hers, and her mother before her."

"But they did it contentedly and happily--because they wished it. Your
mother married your father because she loved him, and was glad--"

"Yes, I reckon she did--but he was different. She could do it for him.
He lived alone--alone. Mother knew he did--she could understand. It was
like he had a room to himself high up on the mountain, where she never
could climb, nor open the door."

David leaned toward her. "What do you see when you look off at the
mountain like that?"

"It's like I could see him. He would take his little books up there and
walk the high path. I never have showed you his path. It was his, and
he would walk in it, up and down, up and down, and read words I couldn't
understand, reading like he was singing. Sometimes I would climb up to
him, and he'd take me in his arms and carry me like I was a baby, and
read. Sometimes he would sit on a bank of moss under those trees--see
near the top by that open spot of sky a right dark place? There are no
other trees like them. They are his trees. He would sit with me there
and tell me the stories of the strange words; but we never told mother,
for she said they were heathen and I mustn't give heed to him." When
deeply absorbed, she often lapsed into her old speech. David l