three years. And Matty’s man, Mose, told Matty, and Matty told me, he’s meaner’n forty damn devils.”

“So you swear, too?” asked the father, breathing deeply.

Virginia opened wide and wider two sparkling blue eyes.

“Swear, sir?” she protested. “I didn’t swear.”

“Pardon me,” replied Singleton, laconically. “I thought I heard you say ‘damn’ several times.”

Virginia’s smile showed two rows of white teeth.

“Oh, so you did!” she laughed, rising. “But ‘damn’ isn’t swearing. You ought to hear me really swear sometimes. Shall I show you how I—I can swear?”

Singleton shook his head.

“I’d rather you wouldn’t!... Sit down again, please.”

The man at intervals turned a pair of burning bright eyes upon her. They weren’t unlike her own eyes, only their expression puzzled Virginia.

She could not understand the rapid changes in her father. He wasn’t the man she had mentally known all these years. But then, all she had had by which to visualize 16 him was an old torn picture, turned face to the wall in the garret. He didn’t look at all like the painting—he was thinner, older, and instead of the tender expression on the handsome, boyish face, time had placed one of bitterness, anxiety, and dread. He sat, crouched forward, stirring the grate fire, seemingly lost in thought. Virginia remained quiet until he was ready to speak.

“I’m going to die soon,—very soon.”

It was only natural that Virginia should show how his statement shocked her. She grew deathly white, and an expression of misery knit the lovely young face.

“How soon?” she shivered, drawing back.

“Perhaps to-night—perhaps not for weeks, but I must tell you something before then.”

“All right,” agreed Virginia, “all right.... I’m here.”

“I haven’t been a good father to you,” the man began after a pause, “and I’m not sure I could do better if I should stay on here with you. So I might as well go now as any time! Your mother would’ve done differently if she’d lived. You look some like her.”

“I’m sorry I don’t remember her,” remarked Virginia apologetically.

“She went away when you were too little even to know her. Then I left you, too, though I don’t suppose any one but her could have made you happy.”

“Oh, I’ve been happy!” Jinnie asserted. “Old Aunt Matty and the cats’re all I need around, and I always have my fiddle. I found it in the garret.”

It was easy to believe that she was telling the truth, for to all appearances she looked happy and healthy. However, Mr. Singleton’s eyes darkened and saddened under the words. Nothing, perhaps, had ever touched him so deeply. 17

“It’s no life for a girl of fifteen years to live with cats and niggers,” he muttered.

One less firmly faithful to conscience would have acquiesced in this truthful statement; not so Virginia.

“Matty’s a good nigger!” she insisted, passionately. “She’d do anything she could for me!”

Seemingly the man was not impressed by this, for his strong jaws were set and unyielding upon the unlighted cigar clenched between his teeth.

“I might as well tell you to-night as to-morrow,” he concluded, dropping the cigar on the table. “Your mother left you her money and property when she died.”

“I know it, sir, and it’s a lot, too! Matty told me about it one night along with ’er ghost stories, sir.... Ever heard Matty’s ghost stories, sir?”

“No, but I didn’t bring you here to talk about Matty. And tell me, what makes you say ‘sir’ to me all the time?”

His impatient tone, his sharp, rasping voice, didn’t change Virginia’s respectful attitude. She only bent her head a trifle and replied:

“Anybody must always say ‘sir’ to another body when she’s kind of half afraid of him, sir.”

She was composed for a moment, then went on:

“It isn’t every day your father comes home, sir, and I’ve waited a long, long time. I’d be a hell of a kid if I couldn’t muster up a ‘sir’ for you.”

Singleton glanced sidewise at his young daughter, bending his brows together in a frown.

“You’re a queer sort of a girl, but I suppose it’s to be expected when you’ve only lived with niggers.... Now will you remember something if I tell it to you?”

“Yes, sir,” breathed Virginia, drawing back a little from his strong emotion.

“Well, this! Don’t ever say ‘sir’ to any human being 18 living! Don’t ever! Do you understand me? What I mean is, when you say ‘sir,’ it’s as if you were—as if you were a servant or afraid—you make yourself menial. Can you remember, child?”

“Yes, sir,—yes, I’ll remember.... I think I’ll remember.”

“If you’re going to accomplish anything in the world, don’t be afraid of any one.”

A dozen explanations, like so many birds, fluttered through Virginia’s mind. Before her rose her world of yesterday, and a sudden apology leapt to her lips. She turned on her father a wondering, sober glance.

“I’ve never said ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ before in all my life—never!” she remarked.

“So you’re afraid of me?”

“A little,” she sighed.

“Ah, don’t be, child! I’m your father. Will you keep that in mind?”

“I’ll try to; I will, sure.”

Mr. Singleton shifted uneasily, as if in pain.

“This money is coming to you when you’re eighteen years old,” explained Mr. Singleton. “My dying will throw you into an ocean of difficulties. I guess the only service I’ve ever done you has been to keep your Uncle Jordan from you.”

“Matty told me about him, too,” she offered. “He’s a damn bad duffer, isn’t he, mister?”

“Yes, and I’m going to ask you not to call me ‘mister,’ either. Look here!... I’m your father! Can’t anything get that into your head?”

“I keep forgetting it,” answered the girl sadly. “And you’re so big and thin and different from any man I know. You look as weak as a—as a cat.”

She stretched forth her two strong legs, but sank back. 19

“Yes, your Uncle Jordan is bad,” proceeded Singleton, presently, “bad enough to want to get us both out of the way, and he wouldn’t find much of an obstacle in you.”

A clammy chill clutched at Virginia’s heart like tightening fingers. The import of his words burned deep within her. She got to her feet—but reseated herself at once at a wave of her father’s hand. The thought of death always had a sobering effect upon her—it filled her with longing, yet dread. The beautiful young mother, whose picture hung in the best room, and whose eyes followed her in every direction, was dead. Matty had told her many times just how her mother had gone, and how often the gentle spirit had returned to hover over the beloved young daughter. Now the memory of it was enhanced by the roar of the wind and the dismal moaning of the tall pines. Virginia firmly believed that her mother, among other unearthly visitants, walked in the night when the blizzard kept up its incessant beating. She also believed that the sound through the pines—that roaring, ever-changing, unhuman sound—was not of the wind’s making. It was voices,—spirit voices,—voices of the dead, of those who had gone down into the small cemetery beyond the road.

Only the day before Matty had told her how, one night, a tall, wandering white thing had walked in silence across the fields to Jonathan Woggles’ house. In the story, Jonathan’s grandpa was about to pass away. The glittering spirit stalked around and around the house, waiting for the old man’s soul. She was about to