"I am afraid you have two rather tough propositions, Philip,--my heart and Mammy Cely's skin." "But she's turning, Unker Wichard," the child declared eagerly. "She is! I saw it on the inside of her hands when she was washing. They are 'most white now." Then earnestly, "Unker Wichard, _is_ yo' heart stone?" "I guess my heart is not very different from other men's, Philip, though it would be hard to make some people think so." "But ever'body don't have the same kind of hearts," the child persisted. He had got up from his knees and climbed into his uncle's lap. He looked around the room in a half scared way and said almost in a whisper, "Some people have wolf hearts." "Nonsense." "They do! Honest, Unker Wichard!" "Philip," said his uncle, sternly, "where did you get all that from?" "Mammy Cely says so. I asked once did she ever have any little child like me, and she said once she did but a man with a wolf heart came and took it away from her. Unker Wichard, do people that take little chilwuns from their mamas--gypsies and ever'body like that--do they always have wolf hearts?" "I am afraid I am not authority, Philip, on the subject. I have never known anybody with a wolf heart. In fact, there is no such thing. You must not believe all Mammy Cely's stories." The boy snuggled down closer. "You haven't any wolf heart, have you, Unker Wichard? Or any stone heart either." "No. Neither one." Philip gave a sigh of relief. "I'm awful glad! 'Cause if it was stone I feel 'most sure it would hurt you sometimes. My heart thes thumps when I run. And if it was a wolf heart maybe you might hurt somebody else--like that other man." The organ in question was beating rather tumultuously just now. Was it possible that it was giving its impassive owner a few unseen blows? Or was it that the fair head of his nephew was pressing upon it overhard? "It seems to me you have been having a good deal of heart talk lately," commented Mr. De Jarnette, grimly. "I think I'll be looking after some of it." He looked after it the next day by demanding sternly of Mammy Cely, "What do you mean by telling Philip all this stuff about men with wolf hearts? Don't you know he will believe it? I won't have him frightened with your bug-a-boo stories." Then, thinking of her rooted antipathy to his father, he added, "And I won't have you saying anything to him about the De Jarnettes, either." Since finding from the child's talk that the Varnums were held up constantly before him, he had felt a growing jealousy for the De Jarnette name. Mammy Cely replied with her accustomed freedom.