"I don’t believe it, Luke," Ann said, her lips set firmly, and she turned back into the house. Standing in the doorway, she watched him trudge along the road, carrying his valise easily in his hand and swinging it lightly to and fro. "What a funny idea!" she mused. "Me forgive Jane Hemingway! The boy talks that way because he’s young and full of dreams, and don’t know any better. If he was going through what I am he’d hate the whole world and every living thing in it." She saw him pause, turn, and put his valise down on the side of the road. He was coming back, and she went to meet him at the gate. He came up with a smile. "The thought’s just struck me," he said, "that you’d be the best adviser in the world as to what I ought to invest my ten thousand in. You never have made a mistake in money matters that I ever heard of, Aunt Ann; but maybe you’d rather not talk about my affairs." "I don’t know why," she said, as she leaned over the gate. "I’ll bet that money of yours will worry me some, for young folks these days have no caution in such matters. Ten thousand dollars—why, that is exactly the price—" She paused, her face full of sudden excitement. "The price of what, Aunt Ann?" he asked, wonderingly. "Why, the price of the Dickerson farm. It’s up for sale. Jerry Dickerson has been wanting to leave here for the last three years, and every year he’s been putting a lower and lower price on his big farm and comfortable house and every improvement. His brother’s gone in the wholesale grocery business in Chattanooga, and he wants to join him. The property is worth double the money. I wouldn’t like to advise you, Luke, but I’d rather see your money in that place than anything else. It would be a guarantee of an income to you as long as you lived." "I know the place, and it’s a beauty," King said, "and I’ll run over there and look at it to-morrow, and if it’s still to be had I may rake it in. Think of me owning one of the best plantations in the valley—_me_, Aunt Ann, your barefoot, adopted son." Ann’s head was hanging low as she walked back to the cottage door. "’Adopted son,’" she repeated, tenderly. "As God is my Judge, I—I believe he’s the only creature alive on this broad earth that I love. Yes, I love that boy. What strange, sweet ideas he has picked up! Well, I hope he’ll always be able to keep them. I had plenty of them away back at his age. My unsullied faith in mankind was the tool that dug the grave of my happiness. Poor, blind boy! he may be on the same road. He may see the day that all he believes in now will crumble into bitter powder at his touch. I wonder if God can really be _all_-powerful. It seems strange that what is said to be the highest good in this life is doing exactly what He, Himself, has failed to do—to keep His own creatures from suffering. That really _is_ odd." XIV