But none of them entered her mood; indeed, they gave her not so much as a glance. Without replying to her, King rose and took the candle from the mantel-piece. He stood it on the table and laid a folded document beside it. "There’s the deed," he said. "It’s made out to mother as long as she lives, and to fall eventually to her step-daughters and step-son, Jake." He left the paper on the table and went back to his chair. An awkward silence ensued. It was broken by old Mark. He coughed and threw his tobacco-quid out at the door, and, smiling to hide his half-sceptical agitation, he moved to the table. His gaunt back was to them, and his grizzled face went out of view when he bent to hold the paper in the light. "By Jacks, that’s what it is!" he blurted out. "There’s no shenanigan about it. The Dickerson place is Mariar Habersham Bruce’s, ef _I_ kin read writin’." With a great clatter of heavy shoes and tilted chairs falling back into place, they rose and gathered about him, leaving their benefactor submerged in their combined shadow. Each took the paper, examined it in reverent silence, and then slowly fell back, leaving the document on the table. Mark Bruce started aimlessly towards the next room, but finally turned to the front door, where he stood irresolute, staring out at the night-wrapped mountain road. Mrs. Bruce looked at Luke helplessly and went into the next room, and, exchanging glances of dumb wonder with each other, the girls followed. Jake noticed that the wind was blowing the document from the table, and he rescued it and silently offered it to his step-brother. King motioned it from him. "Give it to mother," he said. "She’ll take care of it; besides, it’s been recorded at the court-house. By-the-way, Dickerson will get out at once; the transfer includes all the furniture, and the crops, which are in a good condition." King had Jake’s bed to himself again that night. For hours he lay awake listening to the insistent drone of conversation from the family, which had gathered under the apple-trees in front of the cabin. About eleven o’clock some one came softly into his room. The moon had risen, and its beams fell in at the open door and through a window with a sliding wooden shutter. It was Mrs. Bruce, and she was moving with catlike caution. "Is that you, mother?" he asked. For an instant she was so much startled at finding him awake that she made no reply. Then she stammered: "Oh, I was tryin’ so hard not to wake you! I jest wanted to make shore yore bed was comfortable. We put new straw in the tick to-day, and sometimes new beds lie lumpy and uneven." "It’s all right," he assured her. "I wasn’t asleep, anyway."