quare an' grapple with it in the spot whar it finds you, an'
he came to know this, po' sinner, befo' he was done with it."

"He was a good soldier, wasn't he?" asked Molly.

"So good a soldier that he could fight as well on one side as on
t'other, an' 'twas only an accident that sent him into the army with
me instead of against me. I remember his telling me once when I met him
after a battle that 'twas the smell of blood, not the cause, that made
him a fighter. Thar's many a man like that on both sides in every war, I
reckon."

"I wonder how you can be so patient when you think of him!" she said
passionately as he stopped.

"You'll understand better when you're past seventy," he answered gently.
"Thar's a softness like a sort of green grass that springs up an' covers
you when you begin to git old an' worn out. I've got it an' Spot's
got it--you can tell by the way he won't trouble to git mad with the
chickens that come peckin' around him. As soon as it's safely spread
over you, you begin to see that the last thing to jedge anybody by is
what you've known of the outside of 'em."

"I can't feel about him as you do, but I don't mind takin' his money as
long as you share it," returned the girl in a softer voice.

"It's a pile of money such as you've never heard of, Molly. Mr.
Chamberlayne says thar'll be an income of goin' on ten thousand dollars
a year by the time you're a little older."

"Ten thousand dollars a year just for you an' me!" she exclaimed,
startled.

"Thar warn't so much when 'twas left, but it's been doublin' on itself
all the while you were waitin'."

"We could go everywhere an' see everything, grandfather."

"It ain't for me, pretty. Mr. Jonathan knew you wouldn't come into it
till I was well on my way to the end of things."

Kneeling at his side, she caught his hands and clung to him sobbing.

"Don't talk of dying! I can't bear to think of your leaving me!"

His trembling and knotted hands gathered her to him. "The young an' the
old see two different sides of death, darlin'. When you're young an'
full of spirit, it looks powerful dark an' lonely to yo' eyes, but when
you're gittin' along an' yo' bones ain't quite so steady as they once
were, an' thar seem to be mo' faces you're acquainted with on the other
side than on this one--then what you've been so terrible afeared of
don't look much harder to you than settlin' down to a comfortable rest.
I've liked life well enough, but I reckon I'll