ter to Jim
Bradley?" said Minty, quickly, with an angry flash of color in her
cheek.

"That ain't it," said Sharpe confidently; "it's cos he WALKED.
Nat'rally, you'd think he'd RIDE, being high and mighty, and that's
where, ez the parson will tell ye, wot's merely fi-nite and human wisdom
errs! Ef that feller had ridden, he'd have had to come by this yer
road, and by this yer forge, and stop a spell like any other. But it
was foreordained that he should walk, jest cos it wasn't generally
kalkilated and reckoned on. So, YOU had no show."

For a moment, Minty seemed struck with her father's original theory.
But with a vigorous shake of her shoulders she threw it off. Her eyes
darkened.

"I reckon you ain't thinking, Pop--" she began.

"I was only sayin' it was curous," he rejoined quietly. Nevertheless,
after a pause, he rose, coughed, and going up to the young girl, as she
leaned over the dresser, bent his powerful arm around her, and, drawing
her and the plate she was holding against his breast, laid his bearded
cheek for an instant softly upon her rebellious head. "It's all right,
Minty," he said; "ain't it, pet?" Minty's eyelids closed gently under
the familiar pressure. "Wot's that in your hair, Minty?" he said
tactfully, breaking an embarrassing pause.

"Bar's grease, father," murmured Minty, in a child's voice--the grown-up
woman, under that magic touch, having lapsed again into her father's
motherless charge of ten years before.

"It's pow'ful soothin', and pretty," said her father.

"I made it myself--do you want some?" asked Minty.

"Not now, girl!" For a moment they slightly rocked each other in that
attitude--the man dexterously, the woman with infinite tenderness--and
then they separated.

Late that night, after Richelieu had returned, and her father wrestled
in his fitful sleep with the remorse of his guilty indulgence at supper,
Minty remained alone in her room, hard at work, surrounded by the
contents of one of her mother's trunks and the fragments of certain
ripped-up and newly-turned dresses. For Minty had conceived the bold
idea of altering one of her mother's gowns to the fashion of a certain
fascinating frock worn by Louise Macy. It was late when her self-imposed
task was completed. With a nervous trepidation that was novel to
her, Minty began to disrobe herself preparatory to trying on her new
creation. The light of a tallow candle and a large swinging lantern,
borrowed from her father's