agnetic in the child's eyes.

Mrs. Wyford shrugged her shoulders uneasily as she caught their piercing
gaze fixed on her.

"I do believe that little witch understood every word I said," she
exclaimed.

"Oh, certainly not," was the reassuring answer. "She's such a little
thing."

But she had heard it all, and understood enough to make her vaguely
unhappy. Going home she did not frisk along with Fritz, but walked
soberly by Mom Beck's side, holding tight to the friendly black hand.

"We'll go through the woods," said Mom Beck, lifting her over the fence.
"It's not so long that way."

As they followed the narrow, straggling path into the cool dusk of
the woods, she began to sing. The crooning chant was as mournful as a
funeral dirge.

"The clouds hang heavy, an' it's gwine to rain.
Fa'well, my dyin' friends.
I'm gwine to lie in the silent tomb.
Fa'well, my dyin' friends."

A muffled little sob made her stop and look down in surprise.

"Why, what's the mattah, honey?" she exclaimed. "Did Emma Louise make
you mad? Or is you cryin' 'cause you're so ti'ed? Come! Ole Becky'll
tote her baby the rest of the way."

She picked the light form up in her arms, and, pressing the troubled
little face against her shoulder, resumed her walk and her song.

"It's a world of trouble we're travellin' through,
Fa'well, my dyin' friends."

"Oh, don't, Mom Beck," sobbed the child, throwing her arms around the
woman's neck, and crying as though her heart would break.

"Land sakes, what is the mattah?" she asked, in alarm. She sat down on a
mossy log, took off the white hat, and looked into the flushed, tearful
face.

"Oh, it makes me so lonesome when you sing that way," wailed the Little
Colonel. "I just can't 'tand it! Mom Beck, is my mothah's heart all
broken? Is that why she is sick so much, and will it kill her suah
'nuff?"

"Who's been tellin' you such nonsense?" asked the woman, sharply.

"Some ladies at the hotel were talkin' about it. They said that
gran'fathah didn't love her any moah, an' it was just a-killin' her."
Mom Beck frowned fiercely.

The child's grief was so deep and intense that she did not know just
how to quiet her. Then she said, decidedly, "Well, if that's all that's
a-troublin' you, you can jus' get down an' walk home on yo' own laigs.
Yo' mamma's a-grievin' 'cause yo' papa has to be away all the time.
She's all wo'n out, too, with the work of movin', when she's nevah been
used to doi