Gincy never forgot that day. The frightened girls in the foreground, with their coarse, white dresses; the children, their faces curious and alarmed; the sunbonneted women; the row of men on the fence in the rear—sallow, sunburned, and some bearing the marks of dissipation. But what impressed her most was the exalted look on the face of the man when he emerged from the water. “Who is he?” she whispered to Raphael Sloan. “Lem Bennett,” he whispered back, “and the woman is his wife.” X SI QUINN REVEALS A SECRET ONLY that one forenoon did Talitha hold school in the hollow. The very next day the weather took a turn, a cold wind blew up, and for more than a week a lowering sky gave promise of rain it failed to fulfil-except now and then in spiteful gusts. Her hopes, to which she had clung with a brave persistence, vanished with the sunshine. She was greatly puzzled at the indifference her family displayed over the loss of the schoolhouse and its contents. Evidently the school must be discontinued until another year at least. It was getting too late in the season to hope for more than a few days—at a time—warm enough to hold the session out of doors. She had thought some place might be opened to her, but the cabins were small and already overcrowded. When she suggested that the children meet at her own home for a few hours each day, her parents decidedly objected. Even Dan Gooch seemed to forget his anxiety to have Billy and Sudie “git larnin’,” and, although she had offered to assist them with their lessons, along with her own brothers, they had not put in an appearance. Now that her plans for helping the young people of Goose Creek had failed, Talitha felt more keenly than ever the disappointment of returning home. She took all the heaviest work of the household upon her strong, young shoulders. The spinning wheel whirred through the long afternoons which otherwise would have been dull and dreary enough. She had no heart to call on neighbours or kinfolk; they did not need her. Si Quinn had also lost all interest in school matters, or she had failed to meet his expectations. It was strange she had not known it before, and yet she had done her best. She had time now to notice the change that had come over her father. Every morning he went off, his axe over his shoulder; such fore-handedness in getting the winter’s wood was unusual in him. When Martin was home it was he who saw that they did not lack for fuel when the cold weather came on.