s' Captain Pelham, did
she?"

"I don't remember that she did."

"She did n't never have her over to talk with her about what she was
going to do with the boy, did she?"

"I don't know that she did," said the Captain. "She is here; you can ask
her."

"You didn't never hear of her leaving no word with Mis' Captain Pelham
about taking care of the boy, did you?"

"I can't say that I did," said Captain Pelham.

The old man nodded his head with a satisfied air. His cross-examination
was done.

The Captain retired from the witness-stand; his lawyer whispered with
him a moment and then went over and whispered for two or three minutes
with Mrs. Pelham; then he said he had no more evidence to offer.

"Mr. Parsons," said the judge, "do you wish to testify?"

James went to the witness-stand and was sworn.

"Did n't your daughter ever talk about what she wanted done with the
boy?"

"Talk about it?" said James. "Why, she didn't talk about nothing else.
She used to have it all over every time we went in. It was all about how
mother 'n me must do this with him and do that with him,--how he was to
go to school, what room he was going to sleep in to our house, and all
that."

Mr. Baker desired to make no cross-examination, and James's wife was
called, and testified in her quaint way to the same effect.

By a keen, homely instinct James had half consciously foreseen what
would be the controlling element of the case; and while he had not
formulated it to himself he had brought with him one of his neighbors,
who had watched with his daughter through the last nights of her
life. She was one of the poorest women of the village. Her husband was
shiftless, and was somewhat given to drink. She had a large family, with
little to bring them up on. Her life had been one long struggle. She was
extremely poorly dressed, and although she was neat, there was an air of
unthrift or discouragement about her dress. She wore an oversack which
evidently had originally been made for some one else; it lacked one
button. She was faded and worn and homely; but the moment she spoke
she impressed you as a woman of conscience. She had talked in the long
watches of the night with the boy's mother, and she confirmed what James
and his wife had said. There could be no question what the mother had
desired.

Mr. Baker ventured out upon the thin ice of cross-examination.

"She must have talked about her father-in-law, Captain Pelham?" he said.

"Oh,