For the long summer had finally come to an end. After days of radiant October sunshine, when winter seemed, like the hereafter, vague and far off, a wind came rushing out of the north, stripping the trees in a single night, and leaving them surprised at their sudden nakedness. Then the sleet came, and, not content with attacking trees and shrubs, must storm the house itself, invading windows and doors, besieging every nook and corner, only to waste away at last into icy streams that went rattling noisily down the gutters. As the morning wore on Miss Lady grew more and more restless. Suppose the preposterous should happen, and for the second time twelve honest men should pronounce an innocent man guilty? Could Connie face the ignominy of the verdict? Would her fickle, inconstant heart steady to such a test? Suppose that once again the person on whom Donald Morley depended, should fail him in a supreme hour? For the third time Miss Lady threw on her wraps. She could no longer stand the suspense, she must go to him, in case he needed her. “'Fore de Lawd!” exclaimed Uncle Jimpson when her intention was made known to him. “I dunno what ole John'll think of us, takin' him to de station a day lak dis! 'Sides de noon train's done went.” “Then we'll have to drive to town. Hitch up as quickly as you can!” “But, Miss Lady, Honey, you fergit de sleet! Ole John 'ud slide 'round de road lak a fly on a bald spot.” “No matter! I'm going. Hurry!” Myrtella, who was fashioning a dough man, under the personal supervision of Bert, looked up indignantly: “You don't think you are going out in this storm without no lunch, do you?” “I can't eat anything, I'm not hungry.” “That's what you said at breakfast. I ain't got a bit of patience with people that get theirselves sick in bed and be a nuisance to everybody, just for the pleasure of slopping around in the slush on a day like this. I'm going to fix you some toast and a egg, while he's hitchin' up.” “Go on with the story, 'Telia,” demanded Bertie, carefully bestowing a nose on the dough man. “Well,” resumed Myrtella, from the stove, casting an anxious glance at Miss Lady who stood at the window impatiently tapping the pane, “everbody was a wonderin' what would be his very first words, an' Dr. Wyeth he sez, 'Don't pester him to talk, jes' let it come natural.' One day me an' the nurse, the stuck-up one I was tellin' you 'bout, was fixin' to spray out his throat, an' he look so curious at all the little rubber tubes, an' fixin's, that she sez, 'You'll know a lot when you leave here, Chick.' And what do you think he up an' answered? Just as smart an' plain as if he'd a been talkin' all his life?” “What?” demanded Bertie as breathlessly as if he hadn't heard the story a dozen times. “'Shucks', sez Chick, 'I knowed a lot when I come!'” Myrtella's pride in this first articulation of her offspring was so great that it rendered her oblivious to the fact that the toast was scorching.