your parents were not honorable; they may have left you,
thinking it would be best for you. We were considered pretty well off
then."

Harriet made no reply for several minutes, and then she said:

"I think Mr. Westerfelt is the best man I ever knew, but he must be
like his father some, and he told me that his father, who was a captain
in the army, refused to ever see his daughter again who married the son
of his overseer. She moved to Texas, and died out there. Mother, the
legitimate daughter of an overseer would stand higher in any Southern
community than--" At this point a sob broke in her voice, and the girl
could go no further. Mrs. Floyd rose and kissed her on the cheek. "I
see," she said, "that as long as you keep talking about this you will
search and search for something to worry about. I'm glad Mr.
Westerfelt knows about it, though, for he would have to be told some
day, and now he knows what to count on. I'll bet you anything he keeps
on loving you, and--"

"Oh, mother," broke in Harriet, "I don't think he lo--cares that much
for me; I really do not."

Chapter X

"By George!" exclaimed Bradley, as they drove away, "you certainly lit
on your feet when you struck that house. It looks like it 'ud pay you
to git stabbed every day in the week; it's paid the community, the Lord
knows, fer it is shet of the biggest dare-devil that wus ever in it.
The ol' lady seems to have about as bad a case on you as the gal. I've
been thar a time or two to ax about you, an' I never seed the like o'
stirrin' round fixin' things they 'lowed would suit yore taste."

"They have been mighty good to me, indeed," answered the young man,
simply. "I don't think I could have had such thoughtful attention,
even at home."

"I don't like fer anything to puzzle me," said Luke, with a little
laugh, "an' I'll swear Miss Harriet's a riddle. I would a-swore on the
stand a week ago that she wus as big a fool about Wambush as a woman
kin git to be, but now--well, I reckon she's jest like the rest. Let
the feller they keer fer git a black eye an' have bad luck, an' they'll
sidle up to the fust good-lookin' cuss they come across. A man that
reads novels to git his marryin' knowledge frum is in pore business;
besides the book hain't writ that could explain a woman unless it is
the Great Book, an' it wouldn't fit no woman o' this day an' time."

"You think, then, Luke," said Westerfelt, "that a good woman--a real
good woma