osaic picture before her cabin hearth-stone, was wrong. The little
cubes were all askew. The technique was false. This girl, whom she had
put into the pile of relics strewn along Brent's path, was no relic at
all, and did not belong there. Dale, whom she had staged to rival that
other gaunt nobleman of Nature--the product of Kentucky who began life
not more than half a hundred miles from the very soil over which she now
was driving, who had likewise toiled and endured much for an education;
who had emancipated her race; whom, with latter day pride, she declared
she had seen in his boyhood;--had now ruined his chances of being
President by killing a man. She rocked slowly and pitifully to and fro,
as the old mule ambled on, bemoaning the mess of pied cubes that now
stood only for destroyed symmetry--a recalcitrant universe. She may have
derived some comfort from the anticipation of rearranging Nancy to a
nicer part, but this was vastly overshadowed by grief at Dale's untimely
act.

She was not guiding the mule, and it turned of its own accord into the
winding woodland road to Flat Rock. She probably did not realize home
was so near until a gentle voice called her name.

Jane was on the lawn, beneath a low spreading, rambling maple tree whose
summer shade had not for years been pierced by a single shaft of
sunlight. A rustic table and some rustic chairs were there. It was a
spot she chose for the examination of Dale's papers.

Aunt Timmie went on and tied the mule, but tarried not to change her
freshly starched calico dress. This was no day whereon to spare clothes.
Atop her red bandanna a sunbonnet perched neglected. A small, aggressive
tuft of white wool had squeezed below this head-kerchief and was being
held in check by ponderous silver-rimmed spectacles, absently pushed up
on her forehead. Such an excess of head gear seemed excuse enough for
the perspiration trickling down her face as she now looked sorrowfully
at the girl.

"Is dem sums?" she asked.

With the pencil end between her teeth, Jane looked up and nodded.

"Well," Aunt Timmie sighed, "he's done done a sum now dat beats 'em all
holler! I got to set down, honey; mah bones is jest cussin' wid
misery."

Aunt Timmie, as may have been mentioned, never betrayed a secret except
to the one confidant she implicitly trusted. This was Jane. And Jane
would not breathe her trust but to the one person with whom she knew all
things were safe. This was Ann. And Ann