man's beating with a
strap, you see. A while ago I got one that near killed me, but I never
cried a tear. Matty was almost scared to death; she thought I was
dead. Matty can lick hard, Matty can."

Virginia sighed in recollection.

"You don't mean to say the nigger whipped you?"

The girl shook her curly head.

"Whipped me! No! Matty don't whip; she just licks with all her
muscle.... Matty's muscle's as strong as a tree limb."

Mr. Singleton bowed his head. It had never occurred to him in all
those absent years that the child was being abused. How simply she had
told her tale of suffering!

"But I'm fifteen now," she repeated gladly, "so I stand up, spread my
feet like this"--she rose and suited the action to the words--"and
Matty lays her on damn hard, too."

He covered his mouth with one thin hand, choked down a cough, and
endeavored to change the subject.

"And school? Have you been to school?"

"Oh, yes!" assured the girl, sitting down again. "I went to school
back in the hills. There were only five boys and me. There wasn't any
girls. I wish there had been."

"You like girls, I imagine, then," said her father.

"Oh, yes, sir! Yes, indeed, sir! I often walk five miles to play a
while with one. None of the mothers around Mottville Corners'll let
their girls be with me. You see, this house has a bad name."

A deep crimson dyed the man's ashen skin. He made as if to speak, but
Jinnie went on.

"Over in the Willow Creek settlement the kids are awful bad, but I get
along with 'em fine, because I love 'em right out of being hellish."

She was gazing straight into her father's face in all sincerity, with
no trace of embarrassment.

"You know Mrs. Barker, the housekeeper you left me with?" she demanded
a little later. "Well, she died when I was ten. Matty stayed, thinking
every day you'd come home. I suppose mebbe I did grow up sort of
cussed, and I suppose everybody thinks I'm bad because I've only a
nigger to live with, and no mother, not--not even _you_."

Singleton partly smothered an oath which lengthened itself into a
groan, looked long at the slim young figure, then at the piquant
face.

"Just lately I've been wanting some one of my own to love," she
pursued. "I only had Milly and her cats. Then the letter come saying
you'd be here--and I'm very glad."

The smile lighting her face and playing with the dimples in her cheeks
made Thomas Singleton feel as if Heaven's breath had touched him.

"D