Family opinion was against her, innocent and beautiful as she looked lying there—so helpless, so still, with her long-fringed lashes shading her colorless cheek, and her little hands folded upon her bosom, as if already she were breathing the promised prayer for Hugh. Only in Mrs. Worthington’s heart was there a chord of sympathy. She couldn’t help feeling for the desolate stranger; and when, at her own request, Hannah placed Willie in her lap, ere laying him by his mother, she gave him an involuntary hug, and touched her lips to his fat, round cheek. It was the first kiss given him at Spring Bank, and it was meet that it should come from her. “He looks as you did, Hugh, when you were a baby,” she said, while Chloe rejoined, “De very spawn of Mar’s Hugh, now. I ’tected it de fust minit. Can’t cheat dis chile,” and, with a chuckle which she meant to be very expressive, the fat old woman waddled from the room, followed by Hannah, who was to sleep there that night, and who must first return to her cabin to make the necessary preparations for her vigils. Hugh and his mother were alone, and turning to her son, Mrs. Worthington said, gently, “This is sad business, Hugh; worse than you imagine. Do you know how folks will talk?” “Let them talk,” Hugh growled. “It cannot be much worse than it is now. Nobody cares for Hugh Worthington; and why should they, when his own mother and sister are against him, in actions if not in words?—one sighing when his name is mentioned, as if he really were the most provoking son that ever was born, and the other openly berating him as a monster, a clown, a savage, a scarecrow, and all that. I tell you, mother, there is but little to encourage me in the kind of life I’m leading. Neither you nor Ad have tried to make anything of me or have done me any good; but somehow, I feel as if she would,” and he pointed to the now sleeping Adah. “At all events, I know it’s right to keep her, and I want you to help me, will you? That is, will you be kind to her; and when folks speak against her, as they may, will you stand for her as for your own daughter? She’s more like you than Ad,” and Hugh gazed wonderingly from one to the other, struck, for the first time, with a resemblance, fancied or real, between the two. Mrs. Worthington did not heed this last, so intent was she on the first of Hugh’s remarks. Choking with tears she said, “You wrong me, Hugh; I do try to make something of you. You are a dear child to me, dearer than the other; but I’m a weak woman, and ’Lina sways me at will.” A kind word unmanned Hugh at once, and kneeling by his mother, he put his arms around her, and begging forgiveness for his harsh words, asked again a mother’s care for Adah. “Hugh,” and Mrs. Worthington looked him steadily in the face, “is Adah your wife, or Willie your child?”