When William looked toward the woman her worn face flamed crimson, then turned deadly white again. She must have been unusually pretty not so very many years ago, but sorrow, toil and poverty had left their ineradicable marks upon her face and stripped her of all claim to beauty now. Her dress was plain, and as neat as could be expected under the circumstances. Her roughened hair showed an attempt to put it into order, and her eyes looked as though she had not slept for many nights. In spite of her shrinking, there was a dignity about her. The bony hand that held the youngest child wore a wedding ring, now much too large for the finger. The oldest child, a girl apparently of five, had yellow hair and rather bold blue eyes that reminded Mr. Winthrop startlingly of his eldest son’s when he was a small boy. The youngest, a sallow, sickly boy, looked like his mother. The kindly face of Mr. Winthrop was overspread with trouble, but he grasped the humbler man’s hand warmly: "That’s all right, William," he said heartily. "I suppose she felt she must come, and there’s no harm done. Only, for our friend Mr. Van Rensselaer’s sake, keep the matter as quiet as possible." "Certainly, certainly, Mr. Winthrop, and thank you, sir," said the old man gratefully. Then he looked questioningly toward the woman, and took a step in her direction. "Alberty, this here is his father," said William McCord and withdrew hastily. Mr. Van Rensselaer at once engaged him in earnest conversation, giving the other man opportunity to talk with his unknown daughter-in-law without being observed. The woman looked up abashed into the kindly eyes bent upon her. Yet she felt the right was on her side, and she had no need to quail before any one. "It has given me great sorrow, madam, to learn of my son’s behavior," he began. "It is particularly distressing to us because he is our first born, and deeply loved by us." He paused, overcome by his emotion, and the dry-eyed woman, who looked as if she had long ago shed all the tears she had to shed, glanced up wonderingly and said in a voice that betrayed her lack of culture: "Yes, that’s one trouble with him: folks always like him too well. He thinks he can do anything he wants, and it won’t make no diff’runce. But he can’t go no further with me. I’ve jest made up my mind to take a stand, even ef I have to go to that rich girl and show her them childern." The father in him almost shuddered at the vernacular. Of what could Harrington have been thinking when he married this woman—Harrington, who had been brought up amid the refinements of life, and been almost too sensitive to unpleasant things? It was the old story of a pretty face, and a boy far from home and acquaintances, with no one to advise, and no danger of being found out.