TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: —Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. —A Table of Contents was not in the original work; one has been produced and added by Transcriber. HEART’S KINDRED [Illustration] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: For a moment he let himself watch her, and catching his look, she smiled, as she had smiled when his eyes had met hers as he woke.] HEART’S KINDRED BY ZONA GALE AUTHOR OF “FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE,” “NEIGHBORHOOD STORIES” “THE LOVES OF PELLEAS AND ETARRE” “CHRISTMAS,” ETC. _WITH FRONTISPIECE_ New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1915. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO THOSE WHO OBEY THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAG. 1 ” II. ” 17 ” III. ” 42 ” IV. ” 55 ” V. ” 83 ” VI. ” 114 ” VII. ” 146 ” VIII. ” 170 ” IX. ” 191 ” X. ” 223 HEART’S KINDRED I A HUT of bark, thatched with palm-leaves; a gigantic rock at whose base lay old ashes; an open grassy space bordering a narrow mountain stream, and a little garden—these made the home of the Inger, where a man might live and die as a man was meant, neither planning like a maniac nor yet idling like an idiot, but well content with what the day brought forth.